


Bonded

by dragonbagel



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: (why does that tag already exist lmao), Alpha Jack, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Angst, Bonding, Forced Bonding, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Murder, Omega Rhys, Violence, angst to the fucking max, feel bad for rhys, some Non-Con elements, why do i like torturing him so much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-14
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-10-05 03:09:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 21
Words: 55,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10296137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonbagel/pseuds/dragonbagel
Summary: Jack's life is the epitome of awesomeness. He's the powerful alpha CEO of a kick-ass company, is rolling in cash, and has a ridiculously hot omega boyfriend with legs for days.But when a strange, douchey alpha forcibly bonds with Rhys, Jack's life becomes the very definition of fucked.





	1. What Happened To You?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This AU is a slightly different take on A/B/O. Omegas make up a tiny percent of the population, so they're often hunted and captured. Biology-wise, all endotypes are the same as typical humans (so the only guys that can get pregnant are trans), except omegas have a bonding site on the back of their neck and each endotype has a distinct scent. While they tend to fit the stereotypes of being dominant or submissive, there are definitely dominant omegas and submissive alphas. Sexuality also factors in. Additionally, omegas do go through heats regardless of gender (due to an evolutionary fluke), but most take suppressors which allow them to have heats less frequently and less intensely (they're still in control of themselves, just with a bad fever and increased yet manageable arousal). 
> 
> That's about it, but let me know if you have any questions!

It was 10 p.m., and Rhys still wasn’t at dinner.

In the three hours since their reservation at the restaurant had come around, Jack had already finished quite a few baskets of bread and nearly an entire bottle of wine on his own. He’d planned this dinner with Rhys over a month ago after the omega had been rambling about the restaurant practically non-stop, and it would’ve been an understatement to say that it had been driving Jack insane.

To be fair, the table he was sitting at had a killer view of Elpis, not to mention the brilliant stars expanding out in all directions. The only sight that Jack would rather see was Rhys; or, better yet, Rhys leaning against the large, glowing window. Instead, what was supposed to by Rhys’ chair remained empty, and the ice in what would have been his glass of water had long melted.

Jack pulled out his phone to send Rhys another text, his anxiety steadily growing. Sure, Rhys worked late sometimes; being head of programming at Hyperion gave him no shortage of paperwork. But the fact that he hadn’t so much as sent him a response about needing to take a rain check on the dinner made Jack far too uneasy. He didn’t want to give up the table (even top alpha Handsome Jack had gotten waitlisted), but the paranoia bubbling inside him was unbearable.

He waved a waiter over, paying for the wine and leaving an overly generous tip before shrugging on his jacket and heading out the door. He cut through the Hub of Heroism, which was all but empty because of the time, and headed towards Rhys’ office. He slid his phone back out as he waited for the elevator to take him to the correct floor, his frown deepening at the continued lack of reply.

The lights were off when Jack reached the programming floor, emergency fluorescents buzzing to life after being motion activated and illuminating the space. Jack poked his head into Rhys’ office, the faint traces of the omega’s scent that only Jack was able to pick up on sending a shiver down his spine. However, Rhys himself was nowhere to be found; his computer was booted down, his bag and jacket missing. He must’ve left the office.

So where the hell was he?

Jack took to pacing the office, a list of just about a million reasons for getting blown off floating around in his head. Was Rhys mad at him for something? That wasn’t likely, considering the omega had no qualms about yelling at Jack to his face instead of acting petty. Maybe he’d just forgotten about dinner. Yeah, that had to be it. Jack decided to go with this option, since it made him feel a little less shitty about himself. Rhys was probably at home sleeping, and therefore not checking his phone.

Jack sighed, exiting the office and stepping into the elevator that would take him to the penthouse floor. He was never going to let Rhys live this one down, and the thought of Rhys’ frustrated pout caused Jack to smirk to himself. He took his key out of his pocket as he approached the apartment door, sliding it into the lock and authenticating it with a retinal scan.

“Rhys?” he called, flipping the lights on. “You here?”

To Jack's disappointment, his apartment was empty as well. He sighed, glancing at his still-blank ECHOcomm screen before deciding he might as well give it a rest. Rhys clearly didn't want to talk to him, and as much as he wanted to, it wasn't Jack's place to intervene. Rhys was an adult, after all. Besides, after he'd changed into some sweats to sleep in, he'd give Rhys' friend Vaughn a call to at least make sure Rhys was alright.    


Jack froze the instant he pushed open the door to his walk-in closet. He inhaled deeply, a thick scent engulfing him. It smelled good, warm, inviting. It smelled like Rhys.   


"Babe?" Jack asked, turning the lights on in the small room and illuminating his clothes. "Is that you?"   


A small whine was all Jack needed in the affirmative.   


"Why are you in the closet?" Jack said, a small grin flicking onto his face. "Everyone already knows we're dating, pumpkin."   


Jack usually would've gotten no less than a sock in the arm and a frustrated "shut up" from Rhys for that, but he received no answer.   


"Rhysie?" he asked again, his voice softer now. Something wasn't right.   


There was a rustling of clothes in the corner of the closet, and Jack slowly pushed the hangers to the side to reveal Rhys, who was trying to back himself as far into the corner as possible. Jack spotted blood on him, and he immediately dropped to his knees.   


"Rhys? Babe?" Jack said, desperation overtaking him at the sight of the bloodied omega. "What happened to you?"   


Rhys shook his head, something fierce in his eyes despite the instinctual hiding that his body was forcing him to attempt. "Not mine," he said roughly, looking down at the crimson staining his dress shirt.   


Jack nodded, although his nerves were barely calmed. He sniffed the air again, his nose teasing out one deliciously familiar scent.   


"Rhys, are you in heat?"   


Rhys didn't answer, still focused on making himself as small as possible.    


"Honey, you're not supposed to be due for another three weeks," Jack said worriedly. Despite how on-board his body was with the idea of a few days of nonstop fucking,  he knew something was very, very wrong.   


"Not," Rhys said quietly, his words almost unintelligible. "Not my heat."   


Jack stared at him. "Sure smells like it."   


He inhaled again, trying to find any sort of indicator other than Rhys' overwhelming heat smell. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, except...except there was the stink of another alpha on him.    


Jack pulled Rhys close to him, who clumsily fell into his lap with a yelp. He tried to scramble out of Jack's grasp, but when it became clear that the alpha wouldn't be letting him go anytime soon, he surrendered in defeat.   


He felt Jack's warm hands carefully unbuttoning his shirt, pulling it off of him to reveal his pale chest. Jack's eyes roamed over the swirls of his blue tattoo and, upon seeing that blood had most definitely come from another non-Rhys source, he felt another wave of relief.   


Rhys sat up and began to rub himself against Jack's chest, burrowing his face into his shirt and inhaling his scent. He'd come into the closet in the first place because of that smell, Jack's smell, the one that was safe. And now that he had the real thing, he could finally feel protected. Not that he could ever completely be protected, not after....   


"Cupcake, you know I love you, I really do, but I need you to stop trying to crawl into my clothes and tell me what happened," Jack said, his heart heavy at the way Rhys' face fell.    


The omega stared into Jack's eyes for a moment before he finally spoke. "I stabbed him."   


Jack recoiled in surprise, raising his eyebrows. "You  _ what _ ?"   


"I stabbed him," Rhys repeated, his tone flat.   


"Yeah, I got that part," Jack said, chuckling. "Who did you stab?"   


Rhys didn't respond, trying with a renewed effort to bury himself in Jack's clothes, in his scent.   


"Was it an alpha?" Jack asked, and Rhys' flinch was all the answer he needed. "I can smell it on you, y'know."   


Rhys began to whimper, sending uncomfortable chills down Jack's spine. Sure, he sometimes got whiney during heats, but that was completely hormone-fueled. The Rhys that he knew was cocky, smart and nearly as much of an asshole as Jack himself, although he tended to be a bit outwardly kinder.   


He pressed his face into Rhys' now exposed shoulder, scenting across his skin. His heat scent got stronger as he moved closer to Rhys' neck, as did the scent of the other alpha. The mixture of the two smells was making Jack murderous. He moved to turn Rhys over so that he could inspect the omega's back for any sort of injury, but Rhys scooted himself out of Jack's grasp.   


"The hell are you doing, kiddo?" Jack said, his concern giving way to anger.   


Rhys looked just as confused about what he was doing, trying to make eye contact with Jack as his body refused to allow him to. Everything in him screamed to crawl back into that corner, get his alpha to protect him.   


He swallowed. His alpha.   


Although the mental torment was hellish, the pain in Jack's eyes was enough to allow Rhys to fight his biology for a few moments. He dragged himself back over towards Jack, who hadn't moved in fear of scaring Rhys. He intertwined the mechanical fingers of his right hand with those of Jack's, holding onto him tightly as he turned around to show him his back.    


The alpha appeared confused for a moment, the milky white expanse of Rhys' back looking bare as usual.    


Then he noticed the red gashes marring the back of his neck.    


"Rhys," Jack hissed, his tone taking on a territorial quality as he bent to inspect Rhys' neck more closely.   


Rhys just shivered, willing himself to stay still.   


"Is this," Jack said, trailing a finger lightly down the back of Rhys' neck and causing the omega to shudder. "Did he...?"   


Rhys didn't even need to answer for Jack to know that his suspicions were right. His bonding site was covered in blood,  _ Rhys' _ blood, and Jack saw the reddening indents of bite marks.   


Fuck. Sure, he and Rhys had talked about bonding, but they'd never seriously considered it. It was a huge responsibility, and they knew they both had to be completely confident in their decision. Now, though, Jack's conscience was flooded with guilt. If he had agreed to bond with Rhys earlier, maybe they wouldn't be having this conversation in the middle of the night on the floor of Jack's closet. Maybe Rhys wouldn't be bonded to someone else.   


"I didn't want to," Rhys said, so quietly that Jack wasn't sure he'd heard him at first. "He snuck up behind me, forced himself on me. And I stabbed him and got him off of me. But it," Rhys paused, swallowing thickly. "It was too late."   


He felt tears welling in his eyes, and he pressed his face back against Jack's chest. He didn't want Jack to see him like this, scared and confused and  _ alone _ , because the bond was screaming at him in a way he hadn't even known was possible to get to his alpha right away, never mind the safe one embracing him now. It was telling him that Jack wasn't enough, that he was a terrible person if he wasn't with his true bond mate.    


It made him want to rip his skin off.   


"Why didn't you call me earlier?" Jack asked, soothing Rhys as he fidgeted uncomfortably. "I could've helped take care of you."   


Rhys shook his head at the memories. "Too much. Couldn't think."   


Jack could see the guilt written plain as day across Rhys' face, and it struck him that Rhys' body didn't physically have a problem with the bonding. If what he'd heard was true, the mere act of bonding, whether voluntary or not, could send an omega into a blissed, scatterbrained state, not unlike a heat.   


Jack now realized that was the source of the scent that was still deliciously enveloping him. He forced himself to exhale deeply, clearing his mind. "Come on," Jack said, standing and extending his hand to Rhys. "Let me get your neck cleaned up."   


Rhys nodded and took Jack's hand, his skin abnormally warm. He wobbled as he stood, head spinning with vertigo. Fuck, what was happening? He barely registered that Jack was leading him out of the closet towards the bathroom, stuck in a daze. The only indicator that he'd changed locations was the sharp change in smell from that of Jack's to the lemon air freshener stuck to the bathroom wall.   


"Alright, let's see it," Jack said, turning Rhys so that he was facing the bathroom mirror with Jack behind him and Rhys' lower half pressing into the countertop. It made him feel trapped, nervous; it made him feel more terrified than he had in a long, long time.    


Jack held a washcloth under the faucet for a moment before wringing it out and gently pressing it against the skin of Rhys' back. The omega felt goosebumps creep out across his skin, both at the cold water and the contact. But it was mostly the water's freezing temperature, of course, because surely Jack's touch wasn't something that Rhys was afraid of.   


Jack was careful as he wiped the dried blood from Rhys' upper back, the way in which the omega was fidgeting not escaping his notice. He couldn't blame him; what Rhys had gone through that night was a trauma that Jack could never even begin to comprehend. But damnit, he was going to make it better somehow, he had to.   


He brought the washcloth closer to the wound on Rhys' neck, hoping that it wouldn't look quite as ghastly once the blood staining it was washed away. Rhys let out a strangled noise as the cloth brushed over his bonding site, somewhere between a pleasured moan and a terrified squawk.   


"It's okay, I've got you," Jack said soothingly as he continued to lightly dab. Rhys simply bit his lip.    


As Rhys' nearly unbearable agitation grew, so did Jack's anger. The bite marks were now clearly visible, unnaturally long and deep in what appeared to have been the result of a struggle. Forcibly bonding someone wasn't just unethical, it was illegal. It was also basically unheard of, considering the rarity of omegas. Jack had only met a few throughout the course of his life, although never for longer than the few moments it took to conduct a business meeting. They tended to live sheltered, high-class lives, considering the dangers that their endotype brought with it. It had taken Rhys a long while to reveal to Jack that he was an omega, and even then he made sure to hide anything that might identify him as one when he went out in public.   


"Rhys," Jack said, and the omega's eyes flicked up to meet his in the mirror. "I'm going to have to disinfect it."   


Rhys' eyes widened, and he seemed to shrink even further into himself. "It shouldn't need to..."   


Jack frowned, placing one hand on Rhys' shoulder as the other grabbed a bottle of antiseptic spray from next to the sink. He wouldn't call himself an expert on omega biology, but he had done some reading once Rhys had trusted him enough to tell him that he was not, in fact, a beta, as Jack had originally suspected. Apparently, if Rhys had bonded consensually, the linked alpha’s saliva would heal the bite wound. But the bond wasn’t consensual, and the linked alpha was nowhere to be found. There was just Jack.

Rhys hissed in pain as Jack applied the antiseptic to the raw flesh, the burning sensation infinitely magnified by the sensitivity of the bonding site.

“It’s okay,” Jack soothed, layering a bandage overtop the injury to help it heal more quickly. “I’m done now.”

Rhys nodded, wriggling himself out from between Jack and the bathroom counter.

“Thanks,” he said, forcing himself to smile. “I’m, uh, gonna go home now.”

Jack’s encouraging grin faltered. “You’re leaving?”

Rhys averted his gaze, heading towards the apartment door while keeping his neck angled away from Jack. “I need some time alone.”

Jack bit his lip. “I get that, Rhysie, I do,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “I just want to make sure that you’re safe.”

Rhys didn’t reply, a low whine in his throat. As much as he knew Jack’s words should comfort him, they just...weren’t. Everything about Jack suddenly seemed off-putting, especially his scent. That alone freaked him out, considering that he was usually all but addicted to the smell of the alpha.

“I’m sorry Jack, but I really need to go.”

Jack didn’t want to let Rhys out of his sight, but if the pleading look on Rhys’ face was anything to go by, forcing Rhys to stay with him would only make things worse.

“You’ll text me when you get home?”

Rhys nodded, letting out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “Of course.”

Jack gave him another smile as the omega pulled a shirt on, one of his own that he’d left at Jack’s apartment another time he’d stayed over. He then grabbed a bottle of Jack’s cologne and sprayed copious amounts over himself, paying close attention to his neck. Jack realized he was masking his scent.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” Jack asked, watching as Rhys eventually backed out of the doorway.

Rhys snorted. “Come on, Jack; you know this company would fall apart without me.”

Jack laughed at that, blowing a kiss at the omega as he gently closed the door. They’d figure this out, he knew they would. He’d spend all night researching if that’s what it would take to fix this mess.

If only Rhys could be so optimistic.


	2. A Day in the Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rhys and his paranoia have a less-than-fun time at work.

When Rhys awoke the next morning in his own bed, surrounded by his own scent and his own blankets and his own shitty company-issued posters lining the walls, he felt at peace. At least, as at peace as he could be in the given situation. He’d passed out practically as soon as he’d walked through the door, barely managing to send Jack a goodnight text before falling asleep. He hadn’t even taken his cybernetic arm off in his exhaustion, and his right shoulder felt incredibly sore.

He sighed, stretching his arms above his head with a groan and then moving to grab his phone from where it was charging next on his nightstand. Once he’d turned his alarm off, he noticed a few texts from Jack, two from last night and one from this morning. He quickly read them over before shooting him a reply.

_ Hey handsome. Sorry I passed out on you last night. _

He’d finally worked up the willpower to drag himself out from underneath the covers when his phone dinged with a message from Jack. 

_ You’re like an old lady with how early you go to sleep. _

Rhys snorted, in the process of planning out a retort when he received another text. 

_ I’m glad you’re okay. _

Rhys smiled, warmth flooding his body as he quickly typed a response. 

_ <3 you’d get fired for your horrible fashion sense if I wasn’t _

He knew Jack was furiously working out a response about how of _ course _ a ratty sweater was acceptable work attire and how  _ dare  _ Rhys try to tell him that an obnoxious Hyperion yellow suit wasn’t the epitome of style. 

_ Gotta go get ready, this hair doesn’t style itself. See you soon. _

With that, he untangled himself from the blankets and padded into the bathroom he shared with his roommate Vaughn. The tiled floor was cold beneath his bare feet, and he shivered as he quickly brushed his teeth, thinking about the warm shower waiting for him the entire time. After spitting out his excess toothpaste and gargling some mouthwash, he shot himself a grin in the mirror, his teeth shiny and thankfully distracting from the dark bags under his eyes.

He sighed, detaching his cybernetic arm before stripping off his boxers and rumpled t-shirt, glad that he’d at least remembered to take off his dress pants so that they weren’t completely rumpled. Then, with a grimace, he slowly peeled the gauze from the back of his neck, his skin stinging. The wound still looked nasty, red and scabbing over, but at least it wasn’t infected. He made a mental note to thank Jack for that. 

When he finally stepped into the shower, the hot water felt heavenly, wiping away the sweat and blood speckles that Jack had missed. It also relieved some of his anxiety, although he still felt on edge. How had he let that happen yesterday? He’d been so careful, he always was. He made sure to wash his clothes with ridiculous amounts of detergent the night before he wore them, and went through at least one bottle of cologne a week. He ate a seemingly endless amount of oranges in an attempt to excuse the telltale citrus scent of omegas, and before his heat, during which his scent grew incredibly strong, he made Vaughn wear his clothes beforehand to cover them in a beta smell. His friend never failed to complain, rambling on about how it was humanly impossible for Rhys to be so tall and that he didn’t know they made shirts tailored to fit beanstalks. 

Vaughn was the first person he’d trusted with the knowledge that he was an omega, and aside from Jack, a few super judgmental exes whom he preferred not to think about, and his close friend Yvette, he was the only one whom Rhys felt comfortable telling omega-related things to. Rhys had told Vaughn about his endotype before they’d moved in together, because they were best friends and honestly, Rhys’ single-occupancy apartment was way too expensive. Vaughn hadn’t minded though, and if anything was very supportive. Even when Rhys was in heat, which the beta personally refused to help out with because “that would be super gay bro” and “sex toys existed for a reason,” he made sure that Rhys remained fed and hydrated while also fending off would-be visitors. The only time he’d failed to do so was when Yvette had shown up unannounced and spotted Rhys mid-heat, something she claimed still traumatized her.

Rhys smirked at the memory, although his recollection of it was fuzzy due to how heat-scrambled his brain had been at the time. Those weeks of incapacitation still embarrassed him, although with Jack’s help they at least became a bit more enjoyable. Having an alpha to take care of him was much better than having to suffer through it alone, and Vaughn had no shortage of thank-yous for not having to hear Rhys’ moaning for days on end. Jack had laughed at that, and Rhys swore he’d never blushed so hard in his life. 

Vaughn wasn’t around as much anymore, having gotten fairly serious with a beta he was dating. Rhys was pretty sure that Vaughn spent more nights at her house than at their shared apartment, but he wasn’t going to complain; while he’d like to have more time to spend with his bro, he also liked being able to take his time getting ready in the morning without Vaughn fighting him for the bathroom.

He always felt better after thoroughly going through his morning beauty routine, because honestly it was inexcusable to act like he was better than everyone if he didn’t look the part as well. After massaging his mail-order shampoo and conditioner into his hair, he vigorously scrubbed his skin until all traces of sweat and blood were wiped away. He paid special attention to his bonding site, trying to get rid of the citrusy scent it emitted. If what Jack had said last night was correct, his smell was even stronger than usual. Combined with the starkly visible bite marring the back of his neck, the whole situation was just waiting to blow up in his face.

Once he felt sufficiently clean, he pulled on a pair of dark pants and a black button-down that he knew made him look pretty badass. Not being a complete higher-up did have its advantages in that he didn’t have to show up dressed to the nines every day, plus it gave him the chance to wash his clothes more regularly. His shirt collar was flipped up to hide his bonding site, and although Jack said it made him look like Dracula, there wasn’t much he could do about it. He looped a thick red tie around his neck and sprayed a few pumps of cologne on himself to complete the ensemble, flashing finger guns at himself in the mirror. Damn he looked good.

One cup of coffee later and he was on his way to the office, his slag-skin shoes reverberating against the metal floor in an all-too-satisfying way. Things felt pretty normal, and for that Rhys was thankful. Yesterday had been absolutely hellish, so an opportunity to simply go about his daily routines was like a vacation. A work-filled, paperwork-loaded vacation.

“Rhys, you have a meeting with Atlas in five minutes,” a female voice chirped later while Rhys was furiously typing at his desk.

“Thanks, Janey,” he replied, digging out the necessary files from his drawer. He had a sinking suspicion that he wasn’t quite caffeinated enough to manage whatever boredom Atlas’ marketing team had prepared for him this morning. Sighing, he grabbed an orange from the bowl he kept on his desk and headed towards the conference room, already seeing that the oval table was practically full. He knew that Atlas wanted to collaborate with Hyperion on some new weapons, but this was the very definition of overkill.

“Mr. Montgomery!” exclaimed a bald man seated at the end of the table, standing to greet Rhys and shake his hand. The omega responded in kind, covertly scanning the other man with his ECHOeye as he told him to “please, just call me Rhys.”

The man’s file revealed the typical corporate crap, like his five-page resume and hefty six-figure salary. He was also (unsurprisingly) an alpha, and although the majority of Rhys’ business meetings were conducted with those of the so-called “dominant” endotype, it made him more uneasy on that day than usual. His attention was soon drawn, however, to the man’s home planet: Pandora. He was surprised that the Atlas representative was comfortable sharing that information, even more so that he’d been able to secure such a high-up position with the negative connotation that Pandora tended to bring with it.

“Mr. Montgom-- Rhys,” the man said, correcting himself with a smile. “I’m Baron Flynt, although I’m sure your ECHOeye told you that.”

Rhys flushed slightly, but the Baron didn’t seem upset. “I’m also sure you know why we’re here this morning.”

“You want in on the new line of SMGs we’re producing,” Rhys replied with his trademark smirk.

“Precisely,” Flynt said, pulling a stack of blueprints from his briefcase and setting them on the table. “Torgue has been kicking both of our asses in the market of SMGs, if you’ll excuse my language.”

Rhys simply chuckled, signaling for him to continue.

“As you can see from our designs, the addition of our newly-developed elemental artifact can give an edge to Hyperion’s plan,” he said, gesturing to the stack of papers.

Rhys slid the pile towards him, slowly flipping through the first few pages of blueprints.

“Impressive,” he said. “I’d like to look this over further, but I think Hyperion will definitely be interested.”

Flynt gave a slight bow. “Thank you, sir. We’ve drawn up a possible contract, were our partnership to come to fruition.”

Rhys felt eyes shifting in his direction as a blonde-haired Atlas businesswoman carried a thick manilla folder toward Rhys. Maybe they were just looking at him because he was the sexy face representing the company whose feet they were practically groveling at. Or maybe it was because they could smell him, could tell that he didn’t belong. He quickly grabbed the orange he’d brought with him to the meeting for this exact purpose and peeled it, neatly placing the rinds on a napkin. The strong, citrus scent soon permeated the room, and some tension left his shoulders.

He thanked the woman as she handed him the folders, wiping his flesh hand on the napkin as to not get juice on the paperwork. The matrix of fine print attacking his eyes caused him to close the file moments after opening it, not wanting to trigger yet another work-induced migraine. He was about to assure the Baron that he’d make sure to give the contract to Hyperion’s lawyers if the company decided to collaborate when he felt his phone buzz at his hip.

_ Still on for our lunch date? _

Rhys smiled as the text flashed across the retina of his ECHOeye, the heartwarming fact that it was from Jack overpowering his embarrassment at the blatant unprofessionalism.

“Well, Mr. Flynt, it has been a pleasure meeting with you and your team this morning,” Rhys said, popping another slice of orange into his mouth. “You’ll receive our response to your proposal by the end of the week.”

The Baron nodded in thanks, gesturing for his co-workers to pack up and exit the room. Rhys gave them each a smile as they passed, assuring them that their offer was going to be seriously considered. One of them must have bumped into him as they walked, because his attention was drawn from covertly sending Jack a response to a stinging in his left shoulder. However, he wasn’t able to make eye contact with the poor sap who’d knocked into to him, who was no doubt completely embarrassed and about to beg for Rhys’ forgiveness, because of an odd rush of emotions that suddenly overtook him.

His skin felt tingly, light and fluttery and  _ sparkly _ , if that was even possible. He furrowed his brows, because his body felt hot, too hot, yet a cold chill settled over him at the same time. Was he sick? No, he couldn’t be, no way; besides, being ill wasn’t typically a pleasant experience, and despite the temperature fluctuations he was experiencing and the ringing in his ears, something deep inside him felt  _ content. _

“Mr. Montgomery?”

Rhys looked up at the sound of his name, snapped out of his trance by Flynt’s concerned voice.

“Are you alright, sir?”

Rhys nodded, regaining his senses as the strange feelings previously enveloping him subsided. His pulse quickened at the sight of the Baron’s nostrils flaring, and he shoved another slice of orange into his mouth to remind the alpha that the citrus scent was most definitely not coming from Rhys’ body, not at all.

“I apologize, I haven’t eaten much this morning,” Rhys said, hoping to let the excuse blanket both his orange-snacking and momentarily zoning out.

“It’s no problem, sir,” Flynt said, his voice still more filled with worry than suspicion. “Please, go get something to eat. I will be back at the end of the week to revisit our proposition.”

“Thanks,” Rhys said, smiling and eating the last piece of the orange. “I look forward to working with you.”

Flynt gave him a salute before turning and exiting the room, leaving Rhys alone to gather the materials they’d provided to him. He realized he hadn’t actually responded to Jack’s message earlier, so he quickly sent him a response, telling him that he’d be at their favorite cafe in the Hub in ten minutes.

“Janey, can you send these over to Hyperion’s legal team for me?” Rhys asked once he’d made it back to his office, files in hand.

“Sure,” Janey said, happily taking the papers.

Rhys nodded his appreciation before placing the packet of prototype designs onto his desk. He’d look at them more thoroughly after getting some much-needed food in his body.

_ I’ve got our table in the corner. _

Rhys smiled at the text from Jack, which came with an accompanying selfie of the man himself seated in front of a flower-surrounded bay window. He wore a grin on his face that he knew charmed the pants off of Rhys, and Rhys would be lying if he said it wasn’t doing all sorts of things to his body.

He grabbed his wallet and jacket before heading out and locking the door behind him.

_ I’ll be right there, handsome. _


	3. Lunch Date From Hell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rhys and Jack's lunch date doesn't exactly go as planned

Jack couldn’t keep the smirk off his face when he saw Rhys enter the restaurant. He was wearing the dark, form-fitting outfit that highlighted his lithe frame and tattoos that drove Jack wild, and the quirk of the omega’s lips when he saw Jack seated at the table had Jack blushing beneath his mask.

“Hey babe,” Jack said, setting his drink aside to give Rhys a peck on the lips. “Thought you were gonna stand me up again.”

Rhys snorted, sliding into the seat across from Jack and coolly sipping on his water. “Please, I don’t like work  _ that _ much.”

Jack laughed at that, already feeling his stress from work earlier dissipating. His doctor was right: spending time with Rhys really was better for stress relief than killing a dozen employees in R & D.

“Don’t worry, kitten; I already ordered your favorite for you,” he said, reveling in Rhys’ smile as he set the laminated menu back onto the table.

“Since you ordered for me, I assume that means you’re paying too?” Rhys asked smugly. “Because we can’t all be filthy rich CEO’s, after all.”

“That’s cute, Rhysie; real cute,” Jack said, rolling his eyes and covering Rhys’ hand with his own. He squeezed it lovingly, although for some reason it felt like Rhys flinched underneath his touch.

“You alright?” he asked, the way in which Rhys was subtly trying to free his hand from his grasp not escaping his notice.

“Of course,” Rhys said, the slight falter in his self-assured voice piquing Jack’s attention. “I just need you to  _ maybe _ stop crushing my hand for a minute. I’ve got a lot of paperwork to do later, and  _ no _ , I’m not making Janey my scribe.”

Jack pouted as Rhys shot his idea down before it had even passed through his lips, but he relented his grip, instead turning to attack the basket of rolls in the center of the table. “I can think of plenty of better things for you to do with your hands than paperwork, y’know…” he muttered, eliciting a snort from Rhys.

“That wasn’t a ‘no,’ cupcake,” Jack said, a devilish grin spreading across his features.

“Christ, Jack, it’s the middle of the day,” Rhys said, his “stop-making-sex-jokes-Jack” chuckle present but not quite genuine. “Can you at least keep it in your pants until after work?”

“Whatever you say,  _ mom, _ ” Jack replied, hoping to annoy Rhys enough to lift him out of whatever funk he was clearly in.

When Rhys didn’t respond, Jack moved on to a more physical tactic, bumping his leg against Rhys’. The omega didn’t seem at all amused by the game of footsie that Jack was trying to start, and Jack’s thoughts were quickly morphing from annoyed to concerned-- especially when the smell of oranges reached his nose.

“Rhys,” he said, the seriousness of his tone unsettling even to Jack himself. He pointed to his nose, the signal that the two of them had created after Rhys had revealed his concerns about his scent being discovered. What with all the time Jack spent around the omega, he could differentiate between the subtleties of Rhys’ scent and that of actual citrus fruit. And right now, the orangey tinge in the air had Rhys written all over it.

The omega paled as he registered the signal, combing through his pockets in an attempt to find his travel bottle of cologne. When his efforts didn’t turn up anything, Jack could see his anxiety turn into full-blown panic. He hoped the food would come soon; Rhys’ dish was garnished with orange slices, which he knew would help excuse the scent. The omega’s fear was discomforting to him, to say the least. It wasn’t exactly outward-- Rhys was never one to admit any sort of weakness-- but his desperate attempts at concealment were almost worse.

“Here,” Jack said, taking his jacket off and holding it out to Rhys. His scent usually calmed him down, not to mention that it would dampen the omega’s own.

Rhys reached out gingerly to take it before pausing, his hand still not touching the leather. He cocked his head to the side, a visible shiver running through him. He then shook his head, retracting his arm and folding it across his chest.

“Thanks, but I’m okay,” he said, giving Jack an obviously fake smile.

Jack stared at Rhys for a moment, pursing his lips and trying to figure out just what he wasn’t telling him, before draping his jacket over the back of his own chair.

“Suit yourself,” he said, rolling his eyes.

Rhys sighed, taking another sip of water, swirling it around in his mouth before swallowing.

“You feeling okay, cupcake?” Jack finally asked, the quiet unsettling.

Rhys just stared at him silently, his eyes slightly out of focus.

“Earth to Rhys,” Jack said, snapping his fingers in his face.

Rhys jerked backwards, shaking his head as if to clear it. “Sorry, sorry, I-- I’ve just been feeling a little off today. I think I might be coming down with something.”

Jack nodded sympathetically, and although Rhys didn’t look physically sick, he decided not to push it. He didn’t need for this to turn into a fight.

“Gentlemen, your meals,” a man said from behind them, sliding two plates onto the table. Rhys flinched, panic flitting across his features before quickly disappearing as he turned to thank the waiter.

Jack wanted to ask Rhys what was wrong, what was  _ really _ wrong, but Rhys could be stubborn as hell when he wanted to. Besides, the burger in front of Jack was calling his name, and his empty stomach wasn’t in the mood for any distractions.

It wasn’t until he’d inhaled almost half of his meal that he realized Rhys was barely touching his food, instead pushing it around the plate with his fork. Although Rhys’ stomach wasn’t quite as bottomless as Jack’s, he always had room for the orange-covered sesame chicken that he ordered every time they visited the restaurant. Except for today, apparently.

“C’mon babe, don’t let daddy’s money go to waste,” he joked, trying to get a rise out of Rhys.

The omega glowered at him, although it appeared to be with genuine anger rather than the usual overdramatized and joking annoyance he typically displayed at Jack’s self-proclaimed nickname. He continued to pick at his food, robotically eating a few bites before pushing the plate away with a sigh and glancing at his watch.

“Look Jack, I’ve gotta head back to work,” Rhys said, wiping his mouth with his napkin.

Jack furrowed his brows, looking at his own watch. There was at least another half hour before Rhys had to be back on the clock, and even then he had a bit of wiggle room, being head of his floor and all.

“You sure?” Jack asked, pouting and shooting Rhys with his best puppy-dog eyes.

“Sorry, handsome,” Rhys said as he rose to stand. “I’ll come by your place tonight, okay?”

Jack nodded, although he wasn’t making any attempt to hide his displeasure. He dipped one of his remaining french fries in the mound of ketchup taking up half of his plate before popping it into his mouth, chewing slowly and trying to bite back an annoyed comment. He felt Rhys’ fingers thread themselves in his hair before mussing it up a bit, and he leaned into Rhys’ touch, a calming warmth flooding his systems.

The pressure on his scalp subsided and Jack closed his eyes, leaning up for a kiss with a dopey smile on his face. When none came, he slowly let his eyes slide back open, searching for Rhys in order to chastise him for being such a tease.

But Rhys was nowhere to be found. Jack frowned, searching for his tall figure amidst other lunch-goers but coming up empty. He took another swig of his drink with a sigh as he called the waiter over for a check, all too aware that for the second time in less than a day, Rhys had abandoned him.


	4. Movie Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rhys doesn't want to take shit from the bond, but sometimes he just can't help it.

The anxiety plaguing Rhys didn’t relent as the rest of the work day progressed, much as he hoped it would. He did feel a bit better once he was alone in his own office and distracted by debugging a virus threatening to corrupt Hyperion’s storage files, and by the time seven o’clock rolled around (because of course Rhys never failed to work overtime), the nervousness inside of him had dulled from a burning to a low discomfort.

He stopped by a Chinese restaurant to pick up dinner on his way to Jack’s, knowing that Jack had probably forgotten to eat or tried to make one of his practically inedible microwave meals. The man would probably starve to death if his freezer malfunctioned. Rhys had even found a Lunchable in the fridge once while looking for a beer, and he’d made certain to never let the alpha live that one down.

Jack had been quite appreciative when Rhys appeared at his door with the food, although Rhys saw a strange look of surprise flit across the alpha’s features before he happily let him into the penthouse. Not before he’d pulled him in for a quick kiss, of course.

“I missed you,” Jack said as he closed the door behind Rhys, no less than fifty locks sliding into place.

Rhys snorted. “Damn, clingy much?”

Jack simply scowled, leading the way to the living room and pointing to the couch.

“Movie night okay with you?”

Rhys smiled, dropping the bag of food onto the coffee table and plopping down onto the sofa. “Sounds perfect.”

Rhys’ heart fluttered at the smile on Jack’s face, because dammit if he was making Jack happy then clearly he was doing something right for once. Jack settled onto the couch beside him, patting down the cushions in search of the TV remote as Rhys began pulling their food out of the takeout bag. One of Jack’s hands landed on Rhys’ crotch in a not-at-all-accidental manner, and Rhys nearly dropped the container he was holding.

“Quit it!” he hissed, although he was more amused than anything.

Jack shot him a devilish grin before squeezing Rhys a few times, teasing. The omega elbowed him far harder than necessary.

“Can we at least have dinner first?” Rhys asked, sighing.

Jack grabbed his food from the table and broke open a pair of chopsticks, winking at Rhys as he did so. He started shoveling his food into his mouth with a mad determination, going so quickly that noodles started dropping from the container to his lap.

Rhys simply laughed as he ate his meal at a normal speed and degree of cautiousness; not everyone had the cash for a new suit just lying around.

“What happened to dinner and a movie?” Rhys said, utterly amused at Jack’s ministrations.

The alpha groaned. “C’mon babe, it’s been like a week.”

Rhys rolled his eyes, causing Jack to bounce his eyebrows.

“You know you want this handsome dick.”

“I _want_ to eat my food in peace,” Rhys retorted.

“Fine,” Jack grumbled, turning on the TV with the remote that was not, in fact, in Rhys’ pants.

Rhys ate fairly quickly as Jack flipped through the channels. Now that he thought about it, he hadn’t really eaten since the few bites he’d taken at their nightmarish lunch date. He could still feel some of that underlying uncertainty, anxiety, whatever the hell this thing was grinding his insides together, sitting with him as he drizzled more soy sauce onto his rice. With Jack’s attention focused on the pay-per-view movie channels, Rhys booted up his ECHOeye to run a system check. Maybe this was all just some cybernetics malfunction that could be fixed and over within a few days.

The scan, to Rhys’ dismay, yielded zero results. Instead, an email alert popped up, temporarily obscuring the vision in his left eye. It was from Baron Flynt, and Rhys begrudgingly opened it. He didn’t really want to think about work right now but, then again, when _wasn’t_ he thinking about work?

The message, about two paragraphs in its entirety, reiterated the same corporal bullshit that Rhys had seen a million times before: Atlas was oh-so happy at this opportunity, thank you Hyperion for not bowling over us, et cetera, et cetera.

His ego-boosting reading was interrupted, however, by an annoyed huff from Jack.

“Sorry,” Rhys said sheepishly, raising his hands in surrender and powering down his ECHOeye. He knew how much Jack hated work invading their private life.

“Yeah, whatever,” Jack said bitterly before bouncing back to his usual infuriatingly energetic self. “While you were all busy moping and adult-ing, I found us a little something to watch.”

“I swear to god Jack if you try to make me watch porn with you _one more fucking time_ I’ll--”

“Relax, kitten,” Jack said, laughing. “You disabled all my adult movie channels, remember?”

Rhys snorted. “And for good reason.”

Jack looked ready to protest but Rhys quieted him by pressing his lips onto his, pulling back after a few moments. “Let’s finish dinner and then maybe I’ll blow you during the movie-- if you’re lucky.”

The grin stretching across Jack’s face was obscenely wide, and Rhys felt color rising to his cheeks. He loved teasing Jack like this, loved making him happy. Yet there was another part of him that most definitely did _not_ love this. Something felt wrong, very wrong, and the fact that he couldn’t find the source of his aggravation somehow made the situation even worse.

Rhys ate the rest of his meal in silence, which Jack took to be his complete enthrallment in the old Western movie that he’d for some reason actually paid money for. Cowboys and rodeos certainly weren’t Rhys’ definition of entertainment, and he’d told that to Jack on multiple occasions (to which he’d only received _“but guns are cool babe”_ as a response). 

He just couldn't seem to put his finger on what this... _nagging_ was inside of him. It felt basic, instinctual, like there was nothing outward that could either cause or relieve it. Had he been taking his heat suppressors? The answer, as always, was yes, considering the degree to which he needed the medication to mask his smell. But then... 

His face fell as he realized what was happening; it was the bond. An omega was supposed to be near their alpha at all times, needing protection and reassurance and all that super outdated jazz. His biology never failed to fuck him over; he had _heats_ , for fuck's sake, even though there was clearly no way for their intended reproduction to ever occur, what with his lack of a uterus. 

He'd spent his life fighting his genetics, his instincts that told him to submit and obey, his scent that put him in constant danger of being taken advantage of. And now, despite all his efforts, he was at the whims of a stupid bond that he didn't want in the first place.

He mentally shook his head. There was no way he was going to back down now or admit defeat. He would do what he always did: he'd fight it.

So when the bond told him to stay as far away as possible from Jack, an "unfamiliar" alpha, he did the exact opposite, setting down his now-empty plate and crawling closer to Jack. The alpha smirked as Rhys situated himself in his lap, burying his face in the juncture between Jack's neck and shoulder.

"Well _hello_ there, Rhysie," Jack said, sounding smug.

Rhys didn't respond, instead beginning to suck a bruise on Jack's collarbone and then kiss up and down his neck.

"This movie's boring," Rhys said, pausing his assault on Jack's neck.

Jack laughed. "I know, pumpkin."

Rhys simply groaned. "Then why the hell would you pick it? There are plenty of other things we'd been meaning to watch and--"

"Rhys," Jack said, interrupting his tirade with a smirk as he slid his hands around to cup Rhys' ass. "Stop talking so much."

Rhys huffed angrily, wriggling in Jack's lap.

"If this movie's too boring for you, we can always just head to the bedroom a bit earlier," the alpha said, smirking.

Rhys groaned, dropping his forehead against Jack's shoulder, which was shaking from his laughter at Rhys' annoyance.

"You picked this movie on purpose, didn't you?"

"Aww, come on Rhysie, don't pout," Jack said, pressing his nose into the top of Rhys' head. 

"I wanted to watch that stupid movie Yvette's been going on about so she'd finally shut up," Rhys grumbled, although his voice contained no malice. He was a bit too preoccupied with Jack's hard-on pressing against his thigh and the way the alpha had started nosing around his neck, scenting him.

"Why don't we watch it in my bed after I've fucked you into next week?"

Rhys rolled his eyes at Jack's shit-eating grin, but the lust in Jack's eyes was making his body go haywire with desire. 

The omega nodded, wrapping his arms around Jack's neck as the alpha lifted them both to stand before guiding Rhys towards his bedroom.

"You're an asshole," Rhys said as Jack began to strip him of his clothes. He'd at least thought to change from his work outfit, considering the last time he'd worn it to Jack's the other man had practically torn it to shreds in horny eagerness. "But I love you."

Jack smiled, and Rhys knew that his face was flushing beneath his mask. "I love you too, kitten. Now get on your back so I can wreck you."

* * *

Jack was talented at everything he did. That much was obvious to anyone with eyes and at least one brain cell, considering he was the youngest CEO in the history of Hyperion and had led the company to an unprecedented level of profit and power. He was also a smooth talker, a solid businessman, and an overall nice guy to talk to (as long as you weren't on his bad side). His ability to murder bandits in a litany of creative methods was, although Rhys' weak stomach didn't always agree, nothing short of awe-inspiring. The majority of Helios either wanted to _be_ Jack or be _on_ Jack. 

Luckily for Rhys, he had the man wrapped around his finger. He also knew the almost impossible degree to which Jack's skills manifested in another area: the bedroom.

Sure, Rhys had had some pretty great sex before. He'd also had average sex, not to mention shitty sex to the degree of practically needing to be repressed. But Jack-- Jack was on a whole other level. Rhys was instinctually submissive in the sheets, and as much as Jack exhibited his primal need to dominate, he never did so in a way that made Rhys feel unsafe or taken advantage of. It wasn't hard to manipulate an omega during sex, especially when that sex occurred while in heat. Apply the right touches to his bonding site and fuck him into a state of bliss, and he would turn to putty, willing to follow any commands despite his typical refusal to do so. It wasn't his fault, of course; the tranquility and submissiveness caused by stimulation both sexually and on his bonding site were just more "perks" to his endotype.

But with Jack... with Jack, Rhys felt safe. At least, he usually did. Now, however, as he laid in Jack's bed watching old game show reruns on mute as the time ticked ever later, he felt off. His body was quite happy, covered in drying sweat and deliciously sore; but his mind was another story. Strange intrusive thoughts told Rhys that he was a traitor, that he should feel guilty and horrible about what he'd done. At some conscious level, Rhys knew that it was just the bond fucking with him, and  that having amazing sex with Jack was nothing short of a privilege. But his defenses were weakened, his resolve softened by the euphoria of an orgasm and reinforced acting as the submissive omega that his genes wanted him to be.

As if the shame wasn't bad enough, Jack's scent was repulsive to him; never mind the fact that hours ago he'd been desperate to cover every inch of his body in it. His scent was _wrong,_ and it rankled something deep within Rhys. Having the scent of an alpha other than the one that was technically _his_ coating his skin and surrounding him was nothing short of traitorous, and his body was doing everything in its power to remind him of that. 

Rhys rolled over onto his side to look at Jack, who had passed out an hour ago and was now lightly snoring. His unmasked face was relaxed and at ease, and Rhys found himself feeling jealous. Didn't Jack know that he'd done something wrong, that he'd slept with someone else's omega?

Rhys grimaced at his train of thought, knowing it was ridiculous yet being unable to stop it. He needed Jack's scent off of him, and he needed it off now.  
He peeled the covers off of himself as he quietly slipped out of bed, not wanting to disturb Jack even though he knew the other man slept like the dead. He headed into Jack's obscenely large bathroom, splashing a bit of water on his face in an attempt to bring himself back to his senses. 

Unfortunately, he had no such luck. 

Sighing, he stripped off his boxers, placing what he checked to make sure was a clean, unscented towel outside the shower before stepping inside. He quickly scrubbed his skin raw with the high-end soap bar that no doubt cost three figures, ridding himself of the smell of Jack and that of sex.

Even after he'd dried himself off, he still felt dirty. He left his boxers in a pile in the corner, deciding he'd rather sleep naked than put anything with Jack's scent back onto his now-clean body. He soon realized, however, that to go back to sleep, he'd have to crawl back underneath the sheets, thereby re-surrounding himself with the alpha's stench. And that simply wouldn't do.

Rhys slid open the linen closet from which he'd grabbed the towel to find a large, fresh blanket. When he pressed it to his nose, it only smelled like lavender laundry detergent. Perfect.

Wrapping the blanket around his body like some cross between a cape and a burrito, he walked back into the bedroom, relieved to see that Jack was still asleep. He pulled the covers taut over his side of the bed before climbing on top of them, making sure that his body was only touching the clean blanket. What with the fact that it was honestly more of a comforter, he was easily able to cover the pillow with it before laying down, only having to pull his gangly legs slightly up towards his chest in order to fit them on the blanket. 

He took one last look at Jack's peaceful face before completely cocooning himself in the blanket, sealing himself in a scentless warmth. 

This time when he closed his eyes, he was finally able to sleep.   


	5. A Familiar Handsome Face

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Important plot points surrounded by fluff. Lots and lots of fluff.

"You cold, kitten?"

Rhys awoke with a yawn that was honestly more of a groan, stretching his arms out above his head and scrunching his eyes closed.

"Wha time 's it?" he mumbled, failing to resist the urge to fall back to sleep.

"Almost noon," Jack replied, and Rhys forced himself to open his eyes (not without more grumbling, of course).

He saw Jack seated on the edge of the bed next to him, already changed out of his pajamas into a pair of sweats and his favorite, practically disintegrating Hyperion sweatshirt. They were honestly no better than Jack's ratty and stained excuse for pajamas, but it was way too early for Rhys' brain to formulate a snide remark about Jack's inability to dress himself.

"Tired," Rhys said shortly, closing his eyes again and burying his face into the pillow.

"Too bad," Jack said, and before Rhys could even reopen his eyes to figure out what was happening, Jack had ripped the blanket he was tangled in onto the floor, causing Rhys to topple with it.

The omega cursed, hitting the floor with a thud and quickly re-surrounding himself with the blanket. He was cold and naked, and goddamnit it was too early for this shit.

"Asshole," Rhys muttered, glaring up at Jack as he gathered the blanket more closely around his body. The alpha stared down at him with a smirk, enjoying his discomfort and annoyance per usual. He ran his fingers through Rhys' hair, mussing it up despite Rhys' irked expression.

"I made us breakfast," Jack said, grinning at Rhys' shocked expression. "Meet me there in five."

The omega didn't respond, instead quite seriously considering the fact that the two of them might be in the afterlife because Jack lacked any and all basic cooking skills, including the common sense of how _not_ to start a fire. 

"Put some clothes on, too," Jack said, looking far too amused at Rhys, who was still sitting on the floor. "As much as I love you in next to nothing, I'm pretty sure my grandma died in that blanket."

Rhys blanched, wriggling out of the fabric as the sound of Jack's laughter receded down the hall. He hurried to unzip his overnight bag as he searched for his clothes, still shuddering at the idea that the corpse of an abusive old lady may have been wrapped in the same blanket he’d slept in.

He slid on a rumpled pair of jeans and one of his various Hyperion t-shirts, pulling on some star-patterned socks for good measure. He tried to smooth out his unruly bedhead in front of one of Jack’s various bedroom mirrors (the alpha’s vanity knew no bounds), but he soon decided it was a lost cause. It was Jack’s fault for messing it up in the first place, anyways.

Rhys inhaled deeply as he made his way towards Jack’s kitchen, the scent of pancakes, eggs, and _oh god was that coffee?_ filling his nostrils. The lack of smoke into the hallway probably meant that Jack had been abducted and replaced by somebody who knew how to properly use a stove, but Rhys’ empty stomach couldn’t care less.

“Smells good,” the omega said, smiling as he pulled back a chair from the table to sit in.

“Right?” Jack said, his back turned to Rhys as he flipped a pancake in a fluid motion.

Rhys took a seat and eagerly poured himself a cup of coffee from the steaming pot in the center of the table.

“Didn’t know you could cook, _Jack_ ,” Rhys mused, rolling his eyes as he blew on his coffee to cool it.

“I’m just full of surprises, cupcake.”

Rhys took a sip of his coffee, mulling over how he could get back at Jack this time. The alpha was always trying to pull shit like this, pretending his doppelganger was actually him in order to get something (usually sex-related) from Rhys. It wasn’t exactly difficult to tell the difference between them; aside from the fact that Tim wasn’t a complete asshole like Jack, the body double was a beta. It was easy to smell him even underneath the aroma of breakfast.

“I guess I’ll just have to stop cooking for you, since you’re clearly so good at this,” Rhys said, smirking to himself. “You’ll be in charge of making all our food from now on, alright?”

“Uhh,” Tim said, looking over his shoulder in a panic. Probably seeking Jack’s signal as to what action would be least likely to get him killed.

“Alright, alright, you win,” the real Jack said, entering from the other room looking both annoyed and defeated.

Rhys snorted. “Come on-- did you really think I’d fall for that one?”

“That’s what I said,” Tim muttered, carrying a platter of pancakes to the table.

Jack glared at his double before turning back to Rhys. “Do you have so little faith in my cooking?”

The omega grabbed a pancake, drenching it in syrup before digging in. “You tried to make toast in a microwave.”

Tim laughed as he slid into the chair next to Rhys. “I once caught him using an Easy Bake Oven.”

“Would you just shut up about that already?” Jack snapped, glowering as he spread copious amounts of butter onto his pancakes.

“Why?” Rhys asked, swallowing another bite. “It’s cute.”

“It’s _not_ ,” Jack retorted.

Rhys smiled, pressing a sticky kiss to Jack’s cheek. The alpha recoiled, wiping at the syrup with the back of his hand. They ate in silence for a bit after that, their hunger overpowering their desire for small talk. It was only after every morsel of food had been scraped off of Jack’s expensive plates that Tim revealed the real reason he was in Jack’s apartment (not that having a breakfast other than Eggo waffles wasn’t reason enough). He’d come to help research how to break Rhys’ bond.

“You told him?” Rhys hissed to Jack as they stood to rinse their dishes in the sink.

“I wouldn’t have said anything if I didn’t think he could help,” Jack replied, turning the faucet on.

“Still,” Rhys said, losing the rest of his thought as he bit his lip. He knew that Jack trusted Tim more than practically anyone else in the world, and Rhys of course trusted him too. But this… for some reason, he felt even more paranoid than usual.

“Come on, kitten,” Jack said, pressing his forehead against Rhys’. “He even made you pancakes.”

Rhys chuckled, the exhale booping his nose against Jack’s. “You do know my weakness.”

“Atta boy, Rhysie,” Jack said, shifting to quickly scent Rhys’ neck before pulling away. “Now come on, let’s go do our homework.”

* * *

 “How are you not understanding this?”

Rhys narrowed his eyes. “There’s nothing to understand, Jack-- other than the fact that I’m right, of course.”

“No,” the alpha said, shaking his head and gesturing to the laptop screen. “No way.”

Rhys groaned, reaching his cybernetic arm forward from where it was resting on Jack’s shoulder to point to another part of the paused image. “This one’s better, and there’s nothing you can say to convince me otherwise.”

Jack groaned, leaning his head back in frustration. “Mittens? Really? Are you blind?”

Rhys unpaused the video currently playing, gesturing to the calico cat walking in circles beside Mittens.

“This one’s name is The Great Catsby,” he said, not even trying to hide the judgement in his voice.

“And it’s a great name!” Jack replied defensively. “All the other cat does is sleep.”

“Mittens is adorable,” Rhys grumbled, looking back towards the black cat softly purring in his sleep. It had been Jack’s idea to look at cat videos in the first place; couldn’t he at least pretend to agree with Rhys?

Jack’s attention span was notoriously short, so after their first twenty searches yielded nothing but elitist alpha propaganda, he’d decided they needed a study break. Rhys had gone along with it because his discomfort was at its max, what with some sites going so far as to say that a non-consensually bonded omega should be glad to have been chosen by an alpha in the first place.

“Uh… guys?”

Both Jack and Rhys looked up from the computer, Jack slamming his hand onto the spacebar to pause the video as his face flushed beneath his mask. “What do you want, Tim?”

“I think I, um, found something,” the doppelganger said, signaling for them to come over to him.

His university-issued laptop was open to a scanned book, pretty old from the look of it. It seemed like something that would come from a library on Pandora.

“School database,” Tim said, replying to the unspoken question as to where the info was coming from. It now occurred to Rhys that, as a college student, the beta would have the best shot at finding some answers for them.

“It says here that if the bond isn’t reinforced for three months, it will fade away of its own accord,” he read, squinting at the tiny text. “Aside from the alpha dying, that is. Although that seems like it’d be painful.”

“Reinforced?” Jack asked, leaning overtop of Tim to look at the screen. “What does that mean?”

“Reinforcing can include prolonged exposure to the bonded alpha, emotional attachment, scent immersion, and heat sharing,” Tim said, his voice neutral.

“So, basically, if I don’t go anywhere near this guy for three months, it’ll just… go away?” Rhys asked, running his fingertips over the now-scarring wound on the back of his neck.

“Sounds like it,” Tim said, scooting the computer towards the omega so that he could read more closely. “I think it’s a survival thing. Like, if your mate left, you’d want to be able to find someone else to protect you, right?”

Jack shot him a glare as Rhys flushed.

“N-not that you need protection, of course!” Tim stammered, raising his arms in innocence. “Just at an evolutionary level, i-is all.”

The alpha continued to scowl, and Tim was quickly excusing himself to use the restroom as he turned red beneath Jack’s glare. Nothing irked the alpha more than the archaic endotype hierarchy, and Tim of all people should know that. He understood deep down that the beta meant nothing of the comment, but when it was combined with all of the alpha supremacy bullshit he’d just had to sift through online, it’d pushed him over the edge.

He hated that Rhys lied about his endotype to everyone, and he hated even more that there was good reason for him doing so. The rarity of omegas coupled with their rumored submissiveness put quite a price on their heads; Jack had caught more than a few now-airlocked alphas talking in the Hyperion breakroom about what they’d force an omega to do for them if they ever came up with that much dough.

That sort of bigoted dialogue had always irked him; but after dating Rhys, an actual omega, for the past year, a single derogatory comment warranted an alpha a one-way trip to space. He now understood Rhys’ beta friend’s paranoia, how Vaughn had called every hour to check in on his friend the first time Rhys spent a heat with Jack. The alpha had chalked it up to some sort of codependent separation anxiety-- that is, until Vaughn told him what had happened to Rhys on Pandora.

Before he’d moved to Helios, Rhys’ then-boyfriend had tried to sell him out to some power-hungry bandit warmonger. Had he not made it off-planet in time, he’d probably be stuck as a sex slave until his owner got tired of him.

Which was why, as Vaughn had clearly pointed out, if Jack tried anything funny while Rhys was out of it with his heat, the beta would make his life so miserable that he’d wish he was dead. Jack had quickly accepted Vaughn’s deal. He’d also accepted Vaughn’s two liters of water (to keep Rhys hydrated), industrial-sized bag of crackers (Jack would thank him later when Rhys wasn’t puking all over Jack’s apartment), and warnings not to go near Rhys’ bonding site (because if he did, Vaughn would know, and Jack would be dead).

Rhys had reassured Vaughn the next week that Jack had taken perfect care of him; he was fed, hydrated, rested, and no longer running a fever. He’d also had some pretty fantastic sex, something that Vaughn never wanted to know. Besides, how bad could it have been? He was on suppressors. If something was wrong, he wasn’t too far gone to not be able to take care of himself.

Vaughn was quick to protest that Rhys’ black market suppressors were anything but reliable. Didn’t he remember the time he’d been running a 115 degree fever for two days? Because Vaughn most certainly did.

Rhys had simply shrugged him off. He’d hacked all his records to display his status to be that of a beta, and without insurance, those pills were way out of his pay grade. They weren’t, however, out of Jack’s. As soon as the alpha found out there was something he could do to ease Rhys’ misery (in a way other than offering supportive blowjobs), he was quick to act. He ordered top-of-the-line suppressors from his personal doctor, handing them to Rhys with glee. The omega had been confused at the gift at first, but once he’d spent a month without side effects, he’d decided it was better than Christmas and his birthday combined.

He still had a heat once in awhile, of course; that much hormone buildup wasn’t good for anyone. So while he still had to hole up every three months and suffer through the nausea and underlying horniness, he still felt in control of all of his faculties. And spending a week with Jack uninterrupted? That he could deal with.

“You know he didn’t mean it, right?”

Jack looked down to see Rhys leaning his head against his shoulder, resting as he waited for Tim to return.

“He-- they can’t-- he can’t just say shit like that!” Jack said, curling his fists. “It’s not right!”

“Yeah, handsome, I know it’s not right,” Rhys said, giving Jack a small smile. “But this is Tim we’re talking about here.”

“So?” Jack said, carding his fingers through Rhys’ hair. “He still said it.”

“C’mon, Jack, give the kid a break,” Rhys said, resting back into Jack’s touch. “He helped us find what we were looking for, right?”

Jack nodded, albeit begrudgingly. Rhys could tell he was still upset, as he seemed to take any mention of the endotype hierarchy even more personally than Rhys did. If the omega was being honest, it was kind of endearing.

“No unfamiliar alphas for three months,” Jack said, his expression softer as he repeated the advice they’d found. “Think you can do that, cupcake?”

“I think so,” Rhys said, taking Jack’s face in his hands and lightly pressing a kiss to his lips. “Besides, I’ve got the only alpha I need right here.”


	6. Rhys: The King of Being Stubborn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone needs a supportive cishet best bro like Vaughn in their life.

The deal with Atlas was approved within the week, and Hyperion had no shortage of praise for Rhys because of it. The new SMG had cornered the market, and the combination of raking in profit and sticking it to Torgue made all facets of Hyperion very, very happy. According to Vaughn, all of accounting was buzzing with excitement, and he might have told his coworkers that he’d helped convince Rhys to support the deal. But even if he had done that (not that he was admitting to anything), Rhys shouldn’t be upset because Vaughn would be able to buy  _ way _ more video games for their apartment if he got that promotion he’d been eyeing.

Rhys had just laughed and told him that he’d better get his gracious roommate the new Fallout game when it came out as a thank-you gift, to which Vaughn had grumbled that Rhys was already making way more than him. Rhys countered that Yvette was draining his bank account with all the free lunches she’d mooched. Vaughn, of course, denied Rhys’ claim and, as if to prove his point, had snatched the check the next time the trio had gone out to eat.

In the weeks since his million dollar deal, Rhys had spent more time inside his office than out of it. Janey had started wearing sneakers to work due to how often she had to walk files into Rhys’ office from her desk outside, and Rhys was all but drowning in partnership proposals. Once he’d realized his secretary actually had programming background herself, he imparted onto her the all-important task of throwing out any paperwork that wasn’t worth considering. He promised he’d pay her extra for it, especially since he knew that she was saving up for her wedding (which Rhys was now, unfortunately, going to be forced to attend).

Even with Janey’s assistance and a bottomless cup of coffee, however, his schedule remained swamped. He found himself running from one meeting to the next, taking a break only to attempt to sort through the mess of folders covering his usually pristinely organized desk. It seemed like everybody wanted something from him; which, if he was being honest with himself, was what he’d always wanted. Attention from the higher-ups, not to mention actual respect, had been his goal since he’d first realized there was a life outside of simply surviving on Pandora. To live and work at the same rank as those who wouldn’t hesitate to take and abuse him in selfish pleasure if they knew who he truly was, to  _ surpass _ those who thought they were better than him-- that was what he’d always ached for.

If achieving that meant suffering through a definitely illegal amount of overtime and pushing his friendships and boyfriend a bit further down on his list of priorities, then goddamnit he’d trudge through it.

It also helped that they’d basically given up on looking for the alpha attacker, all the research they’d done coming up blank. Nobody had checked into a hospital with a stab wound that night, and it wasn’t like Rhys had some superhuman GPS connection. Jack, naturally, had scoured the entire station-- but with no identifying mark, the alpha was indistinguishable from the other thousands of the same endotype on Helios. Rhys had all but repressed the incident with both intentful and unconscious effort, and coupled with his non-normal mental state during the incident, he found it easier to ignore the now-healing scar on the back of his neck and simply wait for it to go away. And work was the perfect way to do so. 

“Seriously bro, when was the last time you ate?”

Rhys looked at Vaughn, shrugging since his mouth was far too stuffed with pizza to respond.

Vaughn sighed, the epitome of a disappointed parent. “You’re gonna work yourself to death! Besides, you need to keep your strength up for tomorrow.”

Rhys furrowed his eyebrows, swallowing the food in his mouth that was more cheese than bread. “What’s tomorrow? Because if you’re trying to make me go to your gym again with you, it’s not happening.”

His roommate stared at him in disbelief. “You’re shitting me, right?”

Rhys shifted in his seat at their sad excuse for a dinner table, which was covered in stains and propped up by old textbooks underneath an unbalanced leg. He was clearly forgetting something, although for the life of him he couldn’t figure out what it was. Rather than continue to sit with his mouth slightly agape like an idiot, he made to grab another slice of the extra large pizza he’d mostly smashed on his own. Vaughn, however, grabbed his wrist, causing both Rhys and his stomach to groan in protest.

“Your heat, bro. It’s supposed to start tomorrow.”

Rhys felt the muscles in both his hand and jaw go limp with realization. “N-no,” he stammered. “No, I have so many meetings scheduled and--”

Vaughn sighed. “Have you really not been keeping track?”

Rhys shrugged sheepishly. “I’ve been kinda busy lately, in case you haven’t noticed.”

Vaughn rolled his eyes. “Well, better go clear your schedule. I’m dropping you off at Jack’s tomorrow.”

Rhys opened up his schedule on his ECHOeye as he managed to pry another slice of pizza from the box, sending an apologetic message to Janey as he notified her that he’d be leaving early tomorrow. Because he’d be fine to attend his morning meeting and pick up the most recent batch of paperwork, right?

“Henderson’s gonna kill me,” Rhys grumbled, because it seemed there was always another level of the bureaucracy above him.

“I’m sure his boss’ boss’ boss will forgive him,” Vaughn said, snagging a piece of pizza before Rhys could devour the entire thing.

The omega sighed, already preparing a multitude of excuses to use tomorrow. He’d used “my mom’s in the hospital” last time, and “I have to go to a funeral” was so cliche. He figured saying he needed a break was more than believable, especially since he received no shortage of comments about how he was “working himself to death.”

“Don’t worry, I already reminded Jack,” Vaughn said, not without a hint of bitterness.

“You’re the best,” Rhys said, smiling and rising from the table to stand. He knew Vaughn still didn’t trust Jack, although this arrangement was far more enjoyable for the both of them.

“Yeah, I know,” Vaughn replied, taking the now-empty pizza box and tossing it in the trash. “Now go get some sleep.”

Rhys groaned. “It’s barely even eleven!”

Vaughn stared at him with dead eyes, pointing to the digital clock on the microwave. “That literally says ‘one,’ Rhys. It’s one in the morning!”

“What?” Rhys asked, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hands. “N-no, I’m pretty sure that says eleven!”

“Great, now he’s going blind,” Vaughn muttered to himself, dragging Rhys towards his bedroom as the omega tried to dig his heels into the rug in protest.

“Wait, Vaughn, I have work to finish!”

The beta grunted under Rhys’ weight; while he was on the slimmer side, his height wasn’t something to be ignored. “I swear to God Rhys if you don’t get your ass in there now I’m calling Yvette.”

Rhys immediately stop struggling as the threat’s intended fear settled in; although Yvette was one of his best friends and not very much on the muscular side, she could be a stone-cold order-giving bitch when she needed to. Rhys had seen workers so desperate to cling to their jobs that they’d actually taken her up on her dismissive demand to lick her boots. She always managed to bring up those top-alpha horror stories at the most opportune moments, such as when she and her friends were out at a restaurant waiting for the bill. 

“Alright, fine, I’m going,” Rhys said as he raised his arms in surrender.

Vaughn followed him closely behind as he stepped into his room, clearly still annoyed. Rhys pulled a duffle bag out from underneath his bed and laid it on top of the blanket before unzipping it. He might as well get the packing out of the way now, especially if he wanted any relief from Vaughn’s crippling judgment. 

The beta was now pacing, his nose wrinkling every few moments as he inhaled. “Rhys,” he said, the look on his face a mixture of amusement and annoyance. “Your room smells like a goddamn carton of Sunny-D.”

The omega laughed at that, real tears springing to his eyes due to what he chalked up to be his exhaustion rather than Vaughn’s characteristically awful humor.

“Sorry bro, can’t help it,” he said, wiping a stray tear from the corner of his eye as he morphed his features into an over-exaggerated sexy leer. “Guess that’s what makes me such hot shit.”

Vaughn pantomimed gagging, which only spurred Rhys on further. “Don’t tell me you don’t want to get with this,” he said, stretching out his left leg and resting his arm on it in a perfect “paint me like one of your French girls” pose.

The beta just grimaced again, although Rhys could see a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “Even if I  _ wanted _ to tap that,” Vaughn started, his speech speeding up as Rhys raised an eyebrow at the statement, “which, let’s be perfectly clear,  _ I don’t _ , Handsome Jack would kill me 50 times over if I so much as  _ thought _ about getting it on with you.”

“You can just call him ‘Jack,’ y’know,” Rhys said as he opened his closet door. “He’s basically your other roommate.”

“There’s no room in this broom closet for both another person  _ and _ all your hair products,” Vaughn said with a snort, to which Rhys took very serious offense. 

“Hey!” he said in protest. “Don’t insult the hair.”

Vaughn rolled his eyes. “Just shut up and pack, wouldja? I’d like to get some sleep tonight.”

Rhys scoffed. “I do know how to pack a suitcase on my own, y’know.”

“I am  _ not _ schlepping out to Jack’s again because  _ you _ forgot your toothbrush.”

“It was one time!” Rhys said, blushing. Why had he ever thought Vaughn would let him live that one down?

“Yeah, yeah,” Vaughn said, waving him off.

They decided to split up the work, with Rhys tackling the clothes (he was very particular about his socks) and Vaughn getting, well, basically everything else. Rhys wasn’t exactly great at taking care of himself, and Vaughn felt like an overprotective parent as he filled a bag with the necessities: medication, toothbrush, mouthwash, hairbrush, cooling lotion. He even threw in some condoms for good measure, although Jack usually took care of things in the sex department.

“Seriously Rhys?” Vaughn said as he came back into the bedroom to see Rhys frozen and staring off into space.

“Wha?” the omega said, turning around to face Vaughn.

The beta scowled as he dropped the bag of toiletries he’d gathered into Rhys’ suitcase, which had been filled with not much more than a few pairs of socks and obnoxious yellow boxers. “I thought you said you knew how to pack.”

“I do,” Rhys said with a nod, although his attention clearly wasn’t focused.

He sounded drunk, and if Vaughn hadn’t known better, he would’ve thought Rhys had blown off his ridiculously small amount of responsibilities to get wasted. However, when Vaughn had been rummaging through the bathroom, he’d seen that Rhys had already taken his medication for that night-- which meant his heat was starting.

Much like birth control, Rhys' suppressors supplied a week of less medicated pills intended to help his body go through the necessary heat less frequently and much less intensely. After all, it was never good to leave one’s hormones bottled up and out of whack for too long.

“Alright bro, let’s get you to bed,” Vaughn said, clearing off a space amidst the blankets for Rhys to crawl into. “You can finish packing in the morning.”

Rhys frowned in confusion. “I finished packing.”

Vaughn groaned. “Rhys, underwear isn’t what I meant by  _ clothing _ .”

The omega shrugged. “It’s not like I’ll be wearing much else while I’m there.”

Vaughn gagged, shoving Rhys with a disgusted “TMI bro, TMI.”

Rhys laughed, always amused at Vaughn’s reactions whenever anything even remotely sex-related came up in conversation. The only time Rhys really got the dirt on Vaughn and his girlfriend was when the beta was drunk, and even then he kept it as unexplicit as possible. Rhys thought it was cute, especially in comparison to Jack’s compulsive need to share every detail about their sex life.

“I left you some clothes on your bed, by the way,” Rhys said as Vaughn turned to leave.

Vaughn snorted, knowing that the omega was asking him to sleep in his clothes in order to rub his scent on them. “You’re not seriously thinking of going to work tomorrow, are you?”

Rhys shrugged, pulling his t-shirt off due to the already setting-in fever to reveal his tattoos as Vaughn shielded his eyes. “I have an early meeting, plus I wanted to pick up work to do while I’m out.”

Vaughn gave him a blank stare, pursing his lips as he thought it over. 

“Fine,” he said, shaking his head in disapproval yet knowing Rhys was also an adult and could make his own decisions, stupid as they might be. “I’ll take you home when I go on lunch break.”

Rhys smiled. “Thanks bro.”

“Yeah, don’t mention it,” Vaughn said, waving off the affection. “Just don’t complain if your clothes look wrinkled tomorrow, it’s not my fault they don’t fit.”

Rhys laughed as the beta left the room, still grumbling to himself about Rhys being an idiot. He removed his cybernetic arm to charge it along with his phone before turning off the light, lying in the darkness as the heat began its torturous crawl through his body.

Damn, this week was going to suck.


	7. Take Care of Him

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey look it's Rhys' heat! 
> 
> This has a slight variation on the typical A/B/O concept, which is explained during the story.

Vaughn had been right: Rhys shouldn’t have gone to work.

The meeting which he’d felt so obligated to attend turned out to be insignificant, and Janey said she would have offered to send digital copies of the paperwork to Rhys’ ECHO if he hadn’t come in again before his pre-arranged days off. He must have eaten at least ten oranges in an attempt to excuse his no doubt stronger-than-usual scent, and despite the multiple cups of coffee he had, he couldn’t break through the fog in his brain.

He was beyond grateful when it was finally time for him to gather up his belongings and leave the office, wishing Janey luck holding down the fort for the next week until he returned. Vaughn sighed at the sight of Rhys’ flushed face when he met him outside the office building, hoping that work hadn’t raised Rhys’ temperature too much.

“C’mon, let’s get you home,” he said, leading the way to their apartment and checking over his shoulder every few minutes to make sure Rhys was still behind him. He hated leaving Rhys alone during his heat, and while Rhys technically could take care of himself during it, the thought of someone grabbing him while not safely at home drove fear into the very center of his being.

That wasn’t to say that his anxiety was in any way alleviated once Rhys was back inside the apartment.

“There’s food in the fridge if you’re hungry, remember to drink water, and I’ll see you in a few hours,” Vaughn said, looking worriedly at the omega as he sat on the couch watching TV.

“I know, Vaughn,” Rhys said, giving the beta an annoyed look. “I live here too, remember?”

Vaughn ignored his comment, instead attempting to take Rhys’ temperature one last time before the omega was shooing him out of the apartment. “I promise I’ll be fine. I’ll just, I dunno, take a nap or something.”

Vaughn nodded. “Call me if you need anything.”

“You know I will,” Rhys said, holding out his hand for a fist bump. “Thanks bro.”

Vaughn returned the bro-fist before heading back outside, waiting for the sound of the locks clicking into place before finally forcing himself to head back to the office. Rhys sighed in relief as he was finally left alone; as much as he loved Vaughn, his constant pestering was exhausting. He resituated himself on the couch, flipping through the channels until he’d determined there was absolutely nothing that would hold his interest.

His brain was a bit too fried from work, he wasn’t even remotely hungry, and he couldn’t exactly leave the apartment to go do anything. He figured he might as well make good on his word and actually take a nap, stripping out of his now-sweaty clothes into just his boxers. He decided to leave his cybernetic arm on because of how nice and cool the metal felt against his skin.

It was only when the ceiling fan was turned on high that was he able to surrender himself to the comforting weight of the blankets, and he was nothing short of bitter that the fever had already hit him this hard. He usually didn’t feel this miserable until at least the second full day.

Wow, life was just  _ loving _ fucking him over lately.

As if to drive home the point, the other, somewhat less pleasant part of his heat reared its head; more specifically, his arousal slammed into him like a fucking truck. He gasped in surprise at how quickly his erection filled out, his shock taking the backseat only to his lust. The instinctual urge for sex was maddening, and in some cases worse than actual physical pain. Sure, Rhys could ignore it if he needed to; but, much like any other injury, it went away much faster if it was taken care of.

Rhys opened a password protected folder of less-than-professional photos from Jack on his ECHOeye, his dick straining at the sight. All he could think of was how later tonight, that would be his. He began to palm himself lightly, but eventually gave up on teasing himself because nobody was about to judge him here.

One orgasm later, and Rhys found himself more than happy to take that aforementioned nap.

* * *

 

“Rhys? Bro, you in here?”

Rhys awoke to the sound of his door slamming open and Vaughn gagging unceremoniously.

“Jesus Christ, did an orange grove die in here?”

Rhys groaned as he pushed himself up to sit, seeing Vaughn clasping a hand over his mouth and nose to avoid breathing in the acrid scent.

“Sorry man,” Rhys said, stretching. “Can’t really help it.”

Vaughn sighed, turning on the light in the room and dumping some clothes onto the bed. “Put these on so we can go to Jack’s and then I can come back and Febreeze the shit out of your room.”

Rhys grabbed the clothes and begrudgingly slid them on. He knew they were Vaughn’s, what with how they were both too baggy and too short. That was the point, of course; if Rhys smelled too strongly, he needed to be covered in layers of clothing and Vaughn’s scent. The sweats came down just below his knees, although the oversized hoodie seemed to fit alright. Rhys wasn’t exactly muscular, and Vaughn’s buffness in addition to the height difference made sharing clothes quite a chore.

“You ready?” Vaughn asked, picking up Rhys’ suitcase.

The omega nodded, grabbing his phone and workbag and following Vaughn out the door. The beta immediately began listing a litany of complaints about his day at work, and Rhys didn’t interrupt, his attention span all but nonexistent. He was hot, and tired, and weak, and goddamnit how much farther did they have to walk?

Vaughn must’ve noticed his sluggishness, because he returned to Rhys’ side and offered to carry the other bag the rest of the way. Rhys saw no reason to argue, especially since it was still hard to keep up even a slow pace behind the beta.

“Hurry up, we’re almost there,” Vaughn said, trying to be encouraging but only pissing Rhys off.

“No, really?” he asked sarcastically, folding his arms over his chest. “This isn’t exactly easy, y’know.”

“Yet  _ you’re _ the one who insisted on going to work earlier,” Vaughn replied, to which Rhys could only let out a frustrated sigh.

They walked the rest of the way in silence, Rhys spacing out and Vaughn not pestering him as long as they kept moving. He could detect Rhys’ scent underneath his own, and even though it was unlikely anyone else would be able to smell him yet, he didn’t want to take any chances.

The beta let out a relieved exhale as they finally reached the outside of Jack’s apartment.

"Hey Rhys, think you can open that door for us?" Vaughn asked, looking expectantly at his friend.   


Rhys didn’t reply, instead focused on the space to the left of Vaughn's head, his cheeks flushed and eyes slightly glossed over.    


"C'mon, bro," Vaughn said, tugging Rhys towards the retinal scanner by the baggy sleeves of the borrowed hoodie.   


Rhys scowled, but decided he could take a momentary break from simultaneously zoning out and bitching in order to let them into Jack's penthouse. The alpha still refused to trust Vaughn with a key, and as annoying as it was, Vaughn had learned early on in their "acquaintance" that one did not simply argue with Handsome Jack.   


"Hey pumpkin!"   


Vaughn sighed, seeing Jack appear from inside the kitchen as they stepped into the apartment. Speak of the fucking devil.   


He wordlessly handed Jack all of Rhys' bags that he'd lugged over for him, which Jack proceeded to unceremoniously drop onto the floor.   


"Really?" Vaughn muttered, rolling his eyes.    


"What was that, short stuff?" Jack asked, glancing at Vaughn as he lowered a dazed looking Rhys down onto the couch.   


Vaughn didn't respond, instead picking up Rhys' work bag and setting it on the counter. He didn't need to be killed when Rhys realized his papers were crumpled, no thank you.    


"Did you get the stuff from the list I sent you?" Vaughn said finally, beginning to pace. He'd done this many times before, yet that never seemed to alleviate any of his anxiety.   


"Of course," Jack replied, looking a bit insulted. "It's all in the bag over there."   


He jerked his thumb over towards a giant grocery bag containing the items which Vaughn had specified. The beta knew what Jack's cooking was like; Rhys could barely keep food down while on his heat, and some undercooked garbage that the alpha tried to put together certainly wouldn't help.    


"I've got everything under control," Jack said, reading the concern that was obviously covering Vaughn's face. "I've done this before, remember?"   


Vaughn nodded, although his worried gaze remained on Rhys, who was now snoozing on the couch. He'd stripped off the jacket Vaughn had so rudely forced him to wear the second the door had closed behind him, and he was now clad in just an old t-shirt and boxers (because pants were too heavy and seriously why was it so warm in here?).    


"Yeah, I know," Vaughn said, forcing himself to head towards the door. He knew that Rhys would call him if anything came up, or even fight Jack if it came down to it (although the alpha was nothing short of disgustingly enamored with Rhys). He'd admit it: his years of experience of taking care of Rhys through his heats made him overly sensitive and protective of his best bro.    


"Take care of him, alright?"   


Jack smiled, brushing a strand of Rhys' hair off of his sweaty forehead. "I wouldn't dream of doing anything else."   


"Oh, and make sure he takes his meds," Vaughn added, almost like an afterthought.    


Jack nodded. He didn't want to be the reason that Rhys' thankfully medicated depression flared up, and even more importantly, he didn't want to take him off the low-dose suppressors and trigger a full-on heat. Rhys already spent the majority of his heats miserable, and Jack wasn't sure he'd be able to properly take care of him if his hormonal fever hit full force.    


After a few more reassurances from Jack (met with multiple threats from Vaughn), not to mention a promise that the alpha would make sure Rhys texted him later that night to check in, the beta exited the penthouse, leaving Rhys to continue napping on the couch as Jack stood over him.    


The alpha had to admit, he'd missed Rhys a lot these past few weeks. The omega had been so bogged down by work that they'd hardly had time to go on any dates, not to mention just spend time hanging out and relaxing together. So, although Rhys never failed to remind him that heats weren't exactly the definition of fun for him, Jack figured this week together was exactly what they needed.


	8. Doing All That I Can For You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rhys lacks the ability to catch a break. Jack is trying his best to look after the most stubborn omega ever.
> 
> Warning: there's explicit content in this chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title was a reference to the song "The Heat" by Jungle (because I think I'm clever) and you should definitely listen to it

Jack decided to let Rhys sleep for a bit longer before forcing some sustenance into him. The omega looked thoroughly exhausted, the dark bags under his eyes prominent. Plus, it would give Jack some time to finish going through his endless barrage of emails before he’d need to devote his full attention to Rhys (not that he minded, of course).

He quietly stepped away from Rhys’ sleeping form to unplug his laptop from where it had been charging on the desk and carry it back to the couch. He didn’t want to be too far from the omega, even if it was only the short distance to the other side of apartment. If the briefcase Vaughn had placed on the desk next to Jack’s computer was anything to go by, Rhys was also planning to get some work done over their stay-cation. Jack rolled his eyes; the next few days would be filled with a tiresome schedule of sleep and sex for Rhys, leaving no room to squeeze in what was probably irrelevant paperwork.

As if to prove Jack’s point, Rhys began lightly snoring from where he was sprawled out on the couch.

_ Idiot _ , Jack thought to himself as he sank down into the armchair next to him, resting his laptop on his knees.  _ Stupid, adorable idiot. _

He couldn’t wipe a small smile off his face at how damn peaceful Rhys looked sleeping there. The slow rise and fall of his chest, the small sliver of his tongue visible between his slightly parted lips-- it all sent a tingly warmth through Jack’s body.

His friends were right. He really was whipped.

He sighed as he opened up his laptop, needing the monotony of work to distract himself from the domesticity oozing from the situation. After typing in his various passwords (since no semi-intelligent being would ever leave their computer unprotected), the familiar home-screen photo materialized on the screen. It was a picture that Vaughn had taken of him and Rhys at a poor person’s idea of a fancy restaurant, which the beta had dragged them to under the pretext of a double date. Jack had thought the dinner had gone great, having taken a liking to Vaughn’s girlfriend. However, since their bonding had been at the expense of spilling embarrassing stories about their respective partners, Rhys and Vaughn vowed to never allow a repeat.

His previously closed windows opened up next, covering the screen in a familiar clutter. He navigated towards the tab displaying his 5,000 unread messages, wondering if he should just shoot himself now or after he deleted the first hundred lawsuits he saw. 

His hands jumped from the keyboard before he could do so as he pulled back in surprise from the loud music now blaring from the laptop’s speakers.

“Fuck,” he cursed to himself, desperately closing tabs in hopes of quieting the noise. He slammed the pause button as soon as he located the tiny tab displaying the Netflix symbol, the episode he’d forgotten he was in the middle of freezing mid-transition. He hoped that Rhys had slept through the clamor of noise, but of course he had no such luck.

Rhys yawned, stretching his arms over his head and popping his back as he slowly opened his eyes.

“Jack?” he asked, his voice soft and sleepy.

“Hey babe,” Jack said, setting his computer onto the ground next to him and depositing himself on the armrest above Rhys’ head. He motioned for Rhys to sit up, which he did ever so slowly, and Jack was able to slide down onto the cushion next to him.

“Was that,” Rhys started, leaning his weight onto Jack, “Say Yes to the Dress?”

Jack’s face immediately burned crimson as he tried to close his laptop with his foot, although the computer was just out of reach. “Of course not! What, is the fever making you hear things?”

Rhys shot him a tired glower. “That was definitely Randy Fenoli.”

“Who’s that?” Jack asked in a horrible attempt at feigned confusion. He really, really hoped Rhys wouldn’t remember this later.

Rhys grumbled something about how he could see everything Jack watched because that’s how sharing a Netflix account worked, but his voice soon dropped off into nothing more than incoherent murmurs.

Jack sighed, looping an arm around Rhys’ shoulder as the omega leaned against him, already succumbing to unconsciousness once again. He pressed a kiss to Rhys’ forehead, and Rhys made a happy noise in his sleep, snuggling closer to Jack. The alpha would have been content to lay like this forever if it weren’t for the fact that Rhys’ body was beginning to feel more and more like a furnace. He’d started to break a sweat underneath his clothes. 

He lightly shook Rhys’ shoulder, trying to rouse him once more.

“Rhysie,” he said soothingly, stroking the omega’s cheek as he was met with a glare. “We need to get your temperature down.”

“M fine,” Rhys mumbled, trying to press his face back against Jack’s chest. Jack sighed, standing and attempting to drag Rhys up with him.

The omega, naturally, remained on the couch like a deadweight.

“C’mon, kitten,” Jack said, grabbing a thermometer and taking Rhys’ temperature. “You’re already running over 105.”

The omega’s attention seemed to perk up at that, probably because beneath the infinitesimal layers stubbornness he did have a brain, and a pretty smart one at that.

“I should go shower…” he said, glancing at the pile of clothes he’d already discarded on the floor. He bent to pick them up, but had to stop halfway once his vision started spinning. Luckily, Jack caught him before he landed on his ass.

“Don’t worry, I’ll wash Fun Size’s clothes later,” Jack said, leading Rhys towards his large bathroom. “Now come on, help me take your arm off.”

Rhys managed to pull his shirt off over his head with Jack’s assistance, but his thoughts were too addled to grant him the fine motor skills necessary to undo the latches at his shoulder. Jack clucked his tongue as he pushed Rhys’ hand aside, fiddling with the mechanism and detaching the prosthetic limb. He made to carry the arm to the charging port, but Rhys grabbed him by the wrist before he could move. He could feel Rhys’ pulse thundering overtop of his own, and the omega’s skin was so, so warm.

“Jack,” Rhys said lowly, his grip on the alpha’s wrist tightening.

Jack saw his eyes were dilated, and his face was flushed for reasons not entirely related to the high temperature he was running. His scent was overpowering, and his pheromones in the air were doing all sorts of things to Jack’s body.

“What, cupcake?” he asked teasingly, loving how desperately horny Rhys got when he was in heat. 

The omega pressed his body against Jack’s as he leaned in to kiss him, his mouth hot and demanding. Jack nearly dropped the cybernetic arm onto the floor in his eagerness to wrap his arms around Rhys, but managed to place it onto the counter before deepening the kiss. 

“Do you know how good you smell?” Jack asked, lowering his head down Rhys’ neck to scent him. 

Rhys whined in the back of his throat as he felt Jack suck a hickey onto his neck, too aroused to even care about how it would look when he got back to the office next week. Having the alpha’s sole attention on him was addictive, a drug he had no intention of quitting. 

He grasped at Jack’s collar with his remaining hand, somehow pulling him even closer in his desperation to cover himself in the alpha’s scent and, more importantly, coerce him into the sex that his body so badly craved. He rubbed his hard-on against Jack’s thigh as he reinvested himself into his onslaught on Jack’s lips, making small needy noises at the friction that just wasn’t enough.

“Mmm,” Jack sighed, reaching a hand down to cup Rhys’ clearly present bulge in his boxers. “You’re already so desperate and the week’s only just started.”

Rhys groaned a “shut up” that was cut off by a moan as Jack slid his boxers down to his ankles, Rhys quickly stepping out of them.

“It’s hot as shit, pumpkin,” Jack said with a grin as he stripped himself of his own clothes. He was sporting a sizeable erection, and Rhys swore he was salivating at the sight.

“We’ve still gotta get you cooled off though,” Jack said, and Rhys detected a hint of remorse in his voice. 

He let Jack lead him to the shower, standing on wobbly feet as Jack turned the water on. 

“Do I have to?” he whined, his head still slightly spinning and his dick painfully hard. 

“Don’t worry babe,” Jack said with a wink. “I’ve got something real special planned for you in the bedroom afterwards.”

Rhys (and his arousal) couldn’t argue with that, and he hastily stepped into the shower, nearly tripping in the process due to his heat-induced vertigo. He hissed as the cold water hit his skin, although after a moment it began to feel soothing. He could feel his body temperature lowering to that of a milder fever, although the freezing water wasn’t doing anything to take care of his erection or even make it go down. Heats were just a fucking  _ blast _ , that was for sure. 

He didn’t bother actually washing himself or his hair, knowing that he’d soon be covered in sweat and the scent of sex anyways. He grabbed a towel after turning the water off, running it through his hair before wrapping it around his waist. Upon entering the bedroom, he found Jack watching another one of his stupid Western movies on the flat-screen TV, and he would’ve complained if he hadn’t seen the way Jack’s hand was wrapped around his cock, leisurely stroking himself. Rhys thought Jack’s apparent cowboy kink could lead to some very interesting roleplaying in the future, although he was currently too preoccupied with the lust pumping through his veins to thoroughly think it through. 

The predatory grin on Jack’s face as he spotted Rhys’ awe-struck expression had Rhys abandoning his towel and practically jumping into the bed, laying against the pillows and soft sheets as he pulled Jack on top of him. Or, rather, he tried to, but the alpha was heavy as hell and Rhys was weak with desire. Jack took the hint, however, turning off the TV and looming over the omega on all fours as he restarted his mission of attacking Rhys mouth with his own. The omega let out a moan as Jack bit down on his bottom lip, his hips canting towards Jack’s body in desperation for his touch. 

“Jack,” Rhys said amidst his gasp for air between kisses. “I need you to--”

Jack was suddenly pushing himself off of Rhys, who whined until he noticed the bottle of lube that Jack was pulling from his bedside dresser.

“Spread those legs for me, beautiful.”

Rhys quickly did as he was told, his submissive instincts guiding his every move. Rhys watched in excited anticipation as Jack coated his fingers with the lube before slowly inserting one into Rhys, who groaned at the strange yet familiar combination of pain and pleasure. No matter how many times he did this, the initial stretch always managed to catch him off guard.

Jack worked his finger in and out of Rhys as he whispered encouragements, grinning at Rhys as the omega told him he was ready for more. He carefully inserted another finger, pumping a few times before scissoring his fingers to stretch him open. Rhys sighed at the feeling, although it was mostly in giddiness towards what he knew would be coming shortly (no pun intended).

The omega couldn’t stifle a moan as Jack slid a third finger inside of him, curling them as he seeked out Rhys’ prostate. The way Rhys’ pleading increased in intensity all of a sudden told Jack he’d found the sweet spot, and he aimed for it each time he pushed his fingers in and out of Rhys, making sure he was comfortable and ready for the real deal.

Eventually pulling out his fingers, Jack spread a generous amount of lube over his cock. Both he and Rhys had recently gotten tested, and Rhys was thankful he wouldn’t have to spend as much money on replenishing the always shrinking supply of condoms they’d been using earlier on in their relationship.

“Are you ready?” Jack asked, to which Rhys couldn’t nod any more enthusiastically. 

The alpha smiled as he slowly guided himself into Rhys, telling him how good he was being and how Jack was going to take such great care of him this week. He gave a few shallow thrusts in order to give Rhys time to adjust before bottoming out with a moan.

He knew he said it often, but damn did Rhys look good with his dick in him. 

“Do you know how  _ long _ ,” Jack said as he started up a leisurely rhythm of thrusts, “it’s been since we’ve had time to properly fuck?”

“T-too long,” Rhys said, his words accentuated by a moan.

Jack grunted in agreement as he picked up his pace slightly before slowing his hips to a standstill, causing Rhys to whine.

“What do you want, kitten?” Jack asked, a twisted grin on his face. He wasn’t above making Rhys beg for it, something he knew the omega wouldn’t hesitate to do with his heat-induced horniness.

Rhys tried to push his hips down against Jack, but a disapproving look had him stopping in submission. 

“P-please Jack,” he said, his eyes pleading for mercy. “I need you to--”

Jack cut him off as he pressed another kiss to his lips, pulling back up to admire how utterly wrecked Rhys already looked. 

“Need me to what?”

Rhys groaned, unamused at the prospect of having to surrender his dignity. But fuck it, he was so painfully aroused and his heat was clouding any reservations in his mind. 

“Fuck me Jack,” Rhys said breathlessly, looking up at the alpha on top of him with hooded eyes. “Please, please fuck me.”

Jack smiled as he began to move again, his thrusts making Rhys back arch slightly off the bed. “All you had to do was ask, princess.”

Spurred on by Rhys’ moans, Jack began pounding into him in earnest, loving every sound he was drawing out from between Rhys’ lips. He moved his right arm from where it was resting on the pillow above Rhys’ head to wrap his hand around the omega’s cock, using the already dripping pre-cum to lubricate the motions. 

He felt Rhys clenching around him as the omega’s orgasm approached, and he couldn’t stop the litany of curses mixed with Rhys’ name that spilled from his own mouth. Of course, he wasn’t about to come until after Rhys had.

The hand around Rhys’ cock sped up, and the omega found himself moaning even louder as the pad of Jack’s thumb rubbed across the head.

“Jack,” Rhys said, his voice breathy. “I’m,  _ fuck _ , I’m close.”

“You gonna come for me baby?” Jack asked, knowing how much Rhys loved dirty talk (and the alpha wasn’t just a casual fan either). “You’re so dirty and needy, aren’t you kitten?”

“Y-yes,” Rhys said, his voice hitching.

“Look at you writhing on my cock,” Jack said, his pace increasing as he too felt himself nearing his end. “So, so greedy.”

Rhys grabbed onto Jack’s bicep, squeezing and letting him know how dangerously close he was. 

“How badly do you need it, hmm?” Jack wondered, loving the look of desperation on Rhys’ face. “How badly do you need to come?”

Jack knew the answer, of course; Rhys had already told him that his heat made his constant arousal much more painful than usual if not attended. 

“S-so bad,” Rhys said, thrusting into Jack’s hand. “P-please Jack, I’m so close.”

Jack grinned as his thrusts became harder and more erratic, although if Rhys’ moans were anything to go by he was still hitting his prostate each time. 

“You can come, Rhysie,” Jack said, his hand remaining attached to Rhys’ cock as he continued to pump him through his orgasm. 

“That’s it,” he said over Rhys’ moans, the omega’s release spilling over Jack’s hand and onto his stomach. “That’s my good omega.”

A few more thrusts into Rhys, and Jack was coming too, a strangled cry of “Rhysie” escaping from his throat.

“ _ Shit _ ,” Jack said as he finished riding out his orgasm, Rhys lying boneless beneath him. “That was so good, pumpkin.”

“Mmm,” Rhys hummed in agreement, hissing slightly as Jack pulled out but then returning to his state of bliss. 

Jack chuckled at the omega as he gently cleaned him off, loving the happy mewls coming from Rhys’ lips as he laid against the pillows with his eyes closed. He’d once told Jack that just as the heat increased his arousal, it also increased his pleasure-- and Rhys certainly looked like he was on cloud fucking nine right now.

He wanted nothing more than to curl up and cuddle with Rhys, but he knew he still had some important things to take care of; mainly, Rhys’ unpredictable health.

Rhys wasn’t asleep, rather in a euphoric suspension just below consciousness, so he easily complied when Jack slipped the thermometer underneath his tongue again.

“It’s back down to 101,” Jack said, thankful that the fever was responsive to his “treatment” (which was mainly cold water and sex).

Rhys smiled at Jack’s words, although the alpha didn’t know if he actually understood them or was simply responding to the familiar voice. The omega was never this docile or happy outside of his heats, and Jack thought it was a cute look on him. Not that being a conniving, smart-mouthed badass wasn’t a major turn-on in and of itself.

Since it was already seven o’clock, Jack figured he should probably try to get Rhys to eat and drink something before going to sleep for the night. He slid back on his boxers and headed over towards the grocery bag still sitting on the kitchen table filled with pre-prepared food that Vaughn had ordered him to buy. 

Rhys cracked his eyes open as the scent of the alpha lessened in intensity, reaching his hand out for Jack and finding nothing but the still-warm sheets. 

“Jack?” he called nervously, inhaling the residual scent of Jack still clinging to the pillows. 

“I’m in the kitchen,” the alpha replied, pulling out a previously-frozen PB&J sandwich.

“Come back to bed,” Rhys said, his voice rough with exhaustion. 

“Not til you eat something first,” Jack replied, causing Rhys to groan. 

“I’m not hungry.”

“Tough luck, cupcake,” Jack said, filling a glass with water and carrying it back into the bedroom. “Look, you can even eat it in bed!”

Rhys huffed indignantly, burrowing himself even deeper within the sheets. With his fever down, he could now focus on the other sensations ailing his body; more specifically, his nausea. 

“Would you at least drink something?” Jack asked, realizing he should’ve done more to mentally prepare himself for Rhys’ somehow higher than normal stubbornness. 

Rhys sighed, feeling how dry his throat was (probably from all the moaning he’d been doing). “Fine.”

He took the glass from Jack, taking a hesitant sip as the alpha watched. The water felt good as it slid down his throat, and he eagerly gulped down more.

Jack took the cup back once it was empty, trading it for the sandwich. He’d even been so nice as to unwrap it.

Rhys just stared at it with unmasked disgust.

“No.”

“What do you mean, no?” Jack asked, both amused and angered. 

“I’m not eating it,” Rhys said with a huff. “It doesn’t… smell right.”

Jack gave the sandwich an experimental sniff, although nothing seemed out of the ordinary. “It smells like a sandwich.”

Rhys glowered at him, as if somehow Jack wasn’t noticing something blatantly obvious. “You eat it then.”

“Ah ah, Rhysie, this food’s for you,” the alpha replied. “Muscles made me buy it.”

Rhys groaned. Knowing Vaughn, it was probably one of those stupid supplement-addled superfoods meant to boost his immune system or whatever.

“Hey, it’s not my fault he wouldn’t let me just order pizza!” Jack said defensively.

He’d meant it as a joke, but Rhys, for some reason, had a strange expression overtake his face. The omega quietly turned away from him, grabbing his phone from where it was charging on the nightstand and wordlessly scrolling through his unread texts.

“Rhys?” Jack asked, his voice gentler, more serious.

Something was wrong. Something was so, so wrong. 

Rhys didn’t respond, instead slowly typing out a message to Vaughn reassuring him that he was fine. Since he had his cybernetic arm off, texting proved to be an arduous task.

The air, although still heavy with the scent of citrus, dark alpha musk and sex, began to take on a new quality. Jack grimaced when he was able to identify the extra scent: it was fear. 

Rhys flinched as Jack gently put his hand on his shoulder, guiding the omega to face him. Jack saw that his eyes were blown wide, and he felt the instinctual urge within him to protect the omega at all costs. 

“What’s wrong, baby?” he asked, stopping his advances as he saw Rhys beginning to back away. Sure, Rhys had weird mood swings during his heats; but Jack had never witnessed something so intense and so  _ sudden _ . Hadn’t Rhys been happily lying there just minutes ago?

“N-nothing,” Rhys said, shrugging Jack’s hand off of his shoulder. “I-it’s nothing.”

Jack frowned. “Don’t lie to me, cupcake.”

Rather than responding, Rhys took the sandwich back from Jack and brought it to his lips, taking a small bite. The alpha watched intently, staying silent because if Rhys was eating then he certainly wasn’t about to be the reason he stopped.

Jack opened his mouth to speak a few more times before faltering, unsure of what to say. Rhys was still slowly eating, and Jack could think of no less than a million wrongs moves he could make. The silence was maddening, however, and the antsiness at sitting still was driving him up the wall. He turned the TV back on, the sound causing Rhys to flinch in surprise before he returned his focus to his food. Jack changed the channel to put on something that he knew Rhys would enjoy (AKA any sci-fi flick with the word “star” in its title), turning the volume down low. 

Jack tried to focus on the movie so as to not stare at Rhys and make him uncomfortable, but the feeling of Rhys’ anxiety was disquieting to him. In fact, he was so focused on trying  _ not _ to focus on Rhys’ scent that he didn’t notice Rhys had finished eating, using a tissue to wipe off some excess jam that had smeared on his cheek.

“Hey,” Rhys finally said, crawling overtop the blankets so that he was pressed against Jack’s side.

Jack smiled, although the sentiment didn’t reach his eyes. He was clearly still worried.  _ Fuck _ .

“Sorry about, uh, that,” Rhys said awkwardly, rubbing at the back of his neck with his hand.

Jack took the omega’s face in his hand, gently turning it from side to side as if inspecting for injuries. Other than the feverish warmth still radiating from his skin, however, nothing appeared out of the ordinary.

“What happened?” he asked softly, tracing Rhys’ cheekbone with his fingertips.

“I just, well-- it, it was-- never mind, it was dumb,” Rhys said, shooting down his own efforts to speak his mind. “Nothing, really, don’t- don’t worry about it.”

“It’s not dumb if it makes you upset, kitten,” Jack said soothingly, causing Rhys to flush with embarrassment. He should’ve kept his mouth shut, even if he hadn’t really said anything yet. 

He couldn’t tell Jack what was wrong without angering or, even worse, shaming the alpha. And Jack was taking such good care of him. It was just his stupid paranoia getting in the way over a stupid comment that his stupid brain had blown way out of proportion. Jack had just been trying to tease Vaughn; he hadn’t  _ actually _ been considering letting someone unfamiliar see Rhys while he was in heat. Someone who could blow his identity to everyone. Someone who could put Rhys’ life in danger.

“Really, it’s nothing,” he said again, taking Jack’s hand and squeezing it to show his sincerity. “Just don’t-- don’t worry about it, alright?”

He could tell Jack didn’t really believe him, but he was thankful that the alpha hadn’t tried to push matters any further. 

“I’m, um, gonna go to bed now, i-if that’s okay,” he said, letting go of Jack’s hand and sliding back underneath the covers.

Jack nodded, turning off the TV and tucking himself into bed as well.

“Thanks for the, y’know, sex,” Rhys said, tripping over his words as he scooted closer to Jack. “And, uh, taking care of me.”

“Of course,” Jack said, pressing a kiss to Rhys’ cheek and causing the omega to blush. “That’s what I’m here for.”

Rhys considered turning over to his side so that Jack could spoon him, but the thought of bearing the back of his neck sent a jolt of anxiety through him. He instead pressed his face into Jack’s bare chest, inhaling his scent with a relaxed sigh. 

He felt Jack’s hand carding through his hair, the alpha whispering sweet nothings to him until he finally fell back to sleep. 


	9. Adorable Idiot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things start getting weird for Rhys. Jack has no idea what's going on, but is lowkey amused as hell.

Rhys awoke in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. 

He’d been roused from his sleep by the abrupt ending of a nightmare, the particular details of which he couldn’t remember in consciousness. The small snippets he hadn’t forgotten revolved around his capture and manipulation, and he had a sneaking suspicion that his anonymous bond mate had also made a cameo, if the tingling on the back of his neck was anything to go by. 

A glance at the clock beside the bed showed that it was 3 a.m., and less than 8 hours of sleep could be disastrous for him during a heat. Rhys rubbed his temples, trying to clear a slight headache from his mind and hopefully get some more rest. But the blankets were too hot on his sticky skin, and Jack’s hand was an uncomfortable weight where it was slung over his chest in his sleep. The entire situation just felt off putting.

He slid out of bed in the hopes that using the bathroom would grant him the peace of mind to fall back to sleep, but of course his body was still dead set on screwing up his life, so he ended up even more awake than before. Sighing, he made a halfhearted attempt to clean himself up from the mess he and Jack had made earlier, the memory of which for some reason weighed heavily in his mind. 

Knowing that laying in bed with nothing but his anxiety and insomnia to keep him company would do the opposite of helping his already fragile mental state, he begrudgingly decided that he might as well try to get some work done (especially considering that later on he may lack the coherency to do so).

He turned on the small lamp on top of Jack’s desk, sliding open his work bag to set his files onto the table. There was an inordinate amount of paperwork now set before him, although it was more of a welcome distraction than a challenge. He quickly set up a rhythm of flipping through the proposal summaries and prototype blueprints before setting the majority of them in a reject pile. He didn’t get this far by being lenient, and putting Hyperion’s faith in possibly shoddy deals wasn’t the way to earn promotions. 

One proposal, however, caught his eye.

It detailed plans for a merger with Hyperion on the new line of sniper rifles that Rhys had helped to develop, with the company offering an investment in return for shares. It wasn’t the most glamorous deal, yet for some reason pushing for it to be accepted just felt  _ right _ .

He flipped through the manilla folder until he found the actual contract sheet, which necessitated both Rhys’ signature and those of a few of his superiors. Because of his reputation, however, Hyperion higher-ups tended to trust his judgment and sign practically any paper that he placed in front of them.

But his gut feeling had never steered him wrong before (excluding a time he thought his stomach could handle an eating contest against Vaughn), so he tended to be pretty confident in his decisions. And, well, if his intuitions proved to be wrong, he was not at all unfamiliar with less orthodox methods of getting his way. 

Using a pen that Jack had left on his desk, Rhys shakily signed his name on the designated line. His signature was a bit distorted due to his exhaustion, but he filled out so much paperwork that he could probably legibly sign off on contracts while dead asleep. Rhys then filed this proposal in a special folder inside his bag, which might as well have been labeled “not for the shredder,” considering that’s where the rest of the bag’s contents ended up.

He must’ve drifted off at some point amidst his work, because he opened his eyes at the touch of Jack’s hand on his shoulder and found his face buried in a pile of papers. 

“You know, there’s a perfectly good bed for you to sleep in, cupcake,” Jack said with a yawn. 

“Yeah,” Rhys said, slightly embarrassed. “I just, well, I just couldn’t sleep and thought I’d get some work done.”

Jack rolled his eyes, stepping closer to Rhys to loop his arms over the omega’s shoulders and around his neck from his spot behind the chair. “Well, work time’s over.”

Rhys snorted, although he leaned back into Jack’s embrace. “Are you telling me you don’t value employee work ethic?”

“I  _ value _ having my boyfriend well rested so that we can have awesome sex later this morning,” Jack teased, pressing a kiss just behind Rhys’ ear. “Now come on and get your ass back in bed.”

Rhys grumbled as he allowed Jack to tug him away from his work and towards the bedroom, especially as it became clear that Jack wouldn’t be returning to sleep alongside him. 

“So it’s fine for you to do work, just not me?” he asked, folding his arms across his chest because no, he wasn’t above being this petty. 

“Yep,” Jack said, the lightness of his tone irking Rhys. “Because I, unlike you, am not in heat, and therefore don’t need as much beauty sleep. Besides, I’m already hot enough as it is. Any more handsomeness could be blinding.”

Rhys began to protest that Jack was presenting a seriously flawed argument, considering that this was a suppressed heat rather than a real one, but the alpha cut him off by pulling him into a kiss. Jack’s scent was strong, and Rhys’ head was swimming with the aftereffects of the pheromones. He almost didn’t notice Jack quickly tucking in the blankets on either side of Rhys, effectively pinning him in place. 

Keyword: almost. 

“Asshole!” Rhys said with a scowl, although there was no real malice in his tone. Now that Jack mentioned it, a few more hours of sleep really did sound nice… 

“Go on and get some rest, kitten,” Jack said, ruffling Rhys’ hair. “I promise I’ll wake you up in a few hours so you can go back to your super boring paperwork.”

“Thanks,” Rhys said softly, humming as he burrowed his head deeper into the pillow. 

Jack continued to play with Rhys’ rumpled hair as the omega drifted back to sleep, once again admiring the tranquility on his face. Damn he was cute. In all honesty, he’d much rather watch Rhys’ face than do any work, but Hyperion wasn’t about to run itself. He sighed as he returned to his desk, shooting a glance over his shoulder to make sure nothing had happened to Rhys in the two seconds his back was turned. 

But the omega was still peacefully sleeping, and Jack’s instinctual need to protect him felt satisfied. He booted up his laptop, this time making sure the volume was muted, and thrummed his fingers on the desk impatiently as he waited. He then spun around on the chair, grabbed some coffee, and played Flappy Bird on his phone-- but the damn thing still hadn’t finished turning on. 

Boredom in full swing, he decided he might as well look through the mess of papers that Rhys had left scattered on the desk. A few of them were wrinkled from where the omega’s face had rested on them during his impromptu nap, and Jack tried in vain to smooth them out. 

He was soon distracted, however, by a disgusting smell permeating the air. It seemed to be coming from Rhys’ work bag, and Jack wondered if Rhys had forgotten to empty out some now-rancid snacks. That wouldn’t exactly be out of character, considering Rhys’ attention was the very definition of one-tracked and distractible. 

He dumped the bag’s contents onto the countertop, making sure to scoot his coffee mug out of the way beforehand. The only food that fell out, however, was a prepackaged bag of pretzels, which Jack unashamedly tore into. Being the ultimate caretaker required more energy than usual, after all. 

The stench, he realized, was coming from one of the file folders that had fallen out of the bag. He slid the rest of the papers to the side in favor of investigating the nauseating smell assaulting his nostrils. The papers reeked like some disgusting combination of rotten fish, sulfur, and old blood. Was this company so piss-poor that they had to find paper from the sewer?

A flip through the proposal summary caused Jack to snort; the papers came from Atlas. He knew that Hyperion was still crushing Atlas in the market despite the profit they’d recently earned through their partnership, but he didn’t think the company was so bitter that they’d take the low blow of stinking up their business proposals.

And it was a shitty business proposal at that. The paperwork all but handed over the rights to the marketing and production of Hyperion’s newest prototype, only offering minimal advertising in return. Jack honestly didn’t know which was more disgusting: the stench of the papers or the fact that Atlas actually thought a Hyperion employee would be dumb enough to accept their deal. 

That is, until he saw Rhys’ scraggly signature on the bottom of the page. 

“Rhys!” he shouted, clutching the papers in his fist and storming into the bedroom. “Rhys, what the fuck is this?”

When the omega didn’t immediately respond with full enthusiasm (considering he was still very much asleep), Jack took to waving the papers in his face, hoping the rancid smell would wake Rhys up.

“The hell do you want, Jack?” Rhys muttered, pressing his face into the pillow in annoyance.

“I  _ want _ you to explain this!”

Rhys sleepily took the papers from Jack’s outstretched hand, cracking his eyes open halfway to look at the blurry text. 

“Work,” he said shortly, letting go of the papers and pulling the blankets further over his body.

“Uh uh, kitten,” Jack said, snatching up the file once again and skimming it over to make sure he wasn’t seeing things. “ _ Please _ tell me you didn’t sign this bullshit contract.”

“Hmm?” Rhys asked, already beginning to doze off.

“This deal with Atlas!” Jack replied, his anger overcoming his rational desire to keep Rhys well rested. “Y’know, the one where they fucking take away the rights to our own damn gun?”

Rhys looked up at that, the words managing to reach his brain through the fog in his mind. “No, no way,” he mused, taking the papers back and reading them over with renewed interest. 

And there, clear as day, was quite possibly one of the most unfair agreements to ever pass through his hands. God, what the fuck had he been thinking?

“I-- I don’t know why I signed this,” he admitted sheepishly, not meeting Jack’s eyes. “It just, well, it just seemed right? And I-- fuck, I think the fever’s messing with my head.”

Jack sighed at Rhys, placing his hand on his forehead to feel how warm he was. “I told you not to do work, kitten.”

Rhys didn’t respond to that, instead pulling the blankets further up over himself and curling into a fetal position. He felt both cold and hot at the same time, recognizing the familiar symptoms yet still acting surprised at how his body was behaving. 

“You need to eat something, cupcake,” Jack said, stroking his thumb across Rhys’ forehead. “And drink some water.”

Rhys groaned, the nausea overcoming him reminding him that food was the opposite of what he wanted now. 

“I promise I’ll blow you afterwards,” Jack said with a smirk, noticing how Rhys’ attention perked up at the offer. “Yeah, I know you can’t say no to that.”

“Sh-shut up,” Rhys said, clearly embarrassed. As much as he liked to deny it, Rhys really was sex-crazed during his heats. He claimed it was manageable and that he could ignore it, but, well, Jack had yet to see any behavior to back that up. 

At Jack’s encouraging gesture, Rhys untangled himself from the sheets, grabbing an extra blanket to drape over his shoulders as he followed Jack into the kitchen.

“What? I’m cold,” Rhys said with a shrug, noticing Jack’s puzzled look.

“Oh, sure,” Jack said sarcastically. “Because being cold while running a temperature over 102 makes perfect sense.”

“What can I say? My body’s weird,” Rhys said as he slid into a seat at the table. 

“That’s an understatement,” Jack replied, moving to open the fridge. “But it’s okay, I like your body anyways.”

Rhys blushed, although he secretly loved all the attention Jack was giving him. It was nice to have the most powerful man on Helios calling him cute.

“Alright,” Jack said, returning to the table from the fridge and placing two wrapped sandwiches and a bottle of weird brown liquid onto its surface. “Breakfast is served.”

Rhys stared warily at the food, especially as Jack nudged the drink towards him. “What the hell is that?”

“It’s,” Jack paused, squinting at the small print on the wrapper. “Some sort of protein drink.”

The omega wrinkled his nose in disgust. 

“It’s chocolate flavored,” Jack said, as though the taste of it would somehow abate Rhys’ apprehension. 

“So?” Rhys asked, refusing to even touch the bottle. 

“Remember, cupcake: No breakfast, no blowjob.”

Rhys glowered, but slowly uncapped the bottle and took a sip. Jack chuckled, opening up his own… whatever the hell was in the bag Vaughn had told him to buy. It turned out to be some sort of sandwich, and Jack prayed he hadn’t accidentally taken one of Rhys’ probiotic vegetarian nightmares. 

“This shit is disgusting,” Rhys said bitterly, looking at Jack as if this was somehow his fault. 

“Tough luck,” Jack said, taking a bite of his own thankfully edible food. “Now bottoms up, kitten.”

Rhys sighed, beginning to pick at his own food in resignated defeat. “It better be a damn good blowjob.”


	10. Oranges or Tangerines

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rhys has intense emotions. Angst and comfort. What a shocker.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well, here's...something. i've had awful writer's block for weeks, sorry about that.

Rhys absentmindedly scratched at the back of his neck as he sat in yet another meeting, the scarring-over wound itching like a giant bug bite. He was nearing the two month mark since what they’d taken to calling the Incident, meaning this hell was more than halfway over. The constant itching had only recently started, and he figured it meant that the bond was finally starting to break-- which, in his opinion, was a pretty fine trade-off for this thing to finally go away.

The bond had made the last few days of his heat the month before... interesting, to say the least. In addition to the typical mood swings and underlying horniness, he was plagued by intense unease and anxiety. When he and Jack weren't fucking, he stayed as far away from the alpha as possible. The space seemed to dilute his restlessness, although he still found himself pacing through the halls of the apartment as Jack looked on in concern. He could smell the omega's discomfort mingling with his usual pheromones, and the realization that _he_ may be the cause of said unease dredged up hatred toward not only the other alpha but also toward himself.

On the few occasions that Rhys felt more like himself, he dedicated his time to covering Jack in kisses and reassurances (as long as he wasn't sleeping or hunched over the toilet). Jack was quite receptive to his boyfriend's advances, but he could tell that the omega was trying to overcompensate for his noticeable distance. He'd asked Rhys multiple times if he was feeling okay, if he needed Jack to do anything for him.

Rhys' response, of course, was to guide Jack's hand toward his crotch and whisper how there was _definitely_ something Jack could do to help him, but the alpha knew that Rhys was hiding from the problem at hand.

The omega was still attempting to avoid the subject of the bond, and he was grateful that the bond would (hypothetically) be gone by the time his next heat came around. He knew Jack was worried about him, but he also knew that Jack was under immense pressure at work, which he didn't want to add onto.

"So, tell me again why the security hole I asked you to patch weeks ago is _still_ letting in viruses?"

The Hyperion employees at the front of the conference room shifted where they stood, practically cowering under Rhys' disappointed gaze.

"We thought we fixed it!" one of them squeaked out, clearly not wanting to have gotten her boss' attention in such a negative manner.

Rhys sighed. "Show me what program you used."

The two programmers quickly nodded, scrambling to project their work onto the large screen behind them while Rhys continued to scratch at his neck. Damn, he just wanted to go home and sleep for the next week.

Although he'd never admit it for the sake of professionalism, his attention began to wander as the programmers' rambling continued-- which was embarrassing, really, because he used to be able to understand entire lectures centered solely around computer binary translation. Maybe it was the fact that the meeting room was stuffy as hell, or maybe it was that he'd overslept and hadn't had time for breakfast, but Rhys began bouncing his leg in annoyance, glancing at the clock every moment or so.

Why was he still in this stupid room? Seriously, they needed to get that air conditioner fixed, because he couldn't really breathe, and his neck hurt but he couldn't stop himself from practically clawing at it, and his skin felt hot, too hot, and why was this meeting so long, and goddamnit why were these idiots still talking?

On his next breath, it was like something within just snapped.

"What the hell am I paying you people for?" he said, planting his hands on the table and shooting up to stand. Any residual traces of panic were gone, replaced instead by an unadulterated rage.  

"S-sir?" one of them asked unsurely, readjusting his glasses.

"You did go to college, right?" Rhys said with a scowl, standing straight and using his height as further intimidation.

"O-of course," he stammered, glancing from his blonde coworker back to Rhys. "Top of my class on Eden-6."

"Then why don't you start acting like it?" Rhys snapped, taking far too much pleasure in the way blondie was hiding behind her work partner, as if her buddy could somehow absorb Rhys' anger and shield her from his fury.

"We're trying our best, sir," he said, shifting uncomfortably where he stood.

"Does it look like I care?" Rhys snarled. "You could be spending every fucking hour working on this shit and still not do it right!"

"Th-that's uncalled for, sir," blondie piped back up, her bravery undermined by her obvious fear.

"Did I ask you?" he growled, narrowing his eyes.

Before either trembling employee could respond, the door to the room opened and Janey entered. "Sorry for interruptin', boss, but the CEO's here to see you."

Janey was the only one at work that Rhys allowed to address him so casually, and his fury slightly softened, especially at the fact that Jack had come to see him.

"Thanks," he said, nodding to dismiss her.

Janey grinned, turning to duck out before pausing to take a deep inhale.

"Ooh, kudos on the new air freshener, Mr. M," she said appreciatively. "Oranges-- or are they tangerines, I can never tell the difference-- were a good call."

If Janey noticed the way Rhys suddenly stiffened, she didn't show it, the spring in her step as she left at complete odds with Rhys' newfound anxiety.

His fear, however, soon gave way to anger once again, and he turned to glare once again at his incompetent employees. "Well?" he snapped. "What are you waiting for? Go fix this mess before I fire you!"

The two quickly nodded, scurrying out the door without so much as a backwards glance. Blondie brushed against his arm as she hurried past, and Rhys couldn't help but let out a low growl. Rage once again pulsed through him, and a small (large) part of him felt an itching to send this dumb bitch on a one-way trip out of an airlock.

His anger didn't relent as he exited the meeting room, jabbing the button on the elevator with way more force than necessary. He'd learned his lesson about taking the stairs when he'd accidentally locked himself inside the stairwell for half an hour, and that was an experience he had no intention of repeating.

"Stupid fucking idiots," he muttered to himself, ignoring the somewhat surprised look on Janey's face as he stalked past her into his office. "Can't fucking do anything right."

"Who are ya talking about, Rhysie?"

Rhys' head snapped up at the sound of Jack's velvety voice, his irritation flaring as he watched the alpha lazily spin around in the desk chair. In _Rhys'_ desk chair.

"Boring meeting?" Jack asked, smirking as he raised his eyebrows. "Same here, kitten. That's why I came down to visit."

Rhys nodded mechanically, although he wasn't putting in any effort to actually comprehend the words being spoken to him. He'd started to pace, his non-metal fingers twitching slightly at his side.

“I’m going to fucking kill them,” Rhys muttered to himself, the corners of his mouth twitching.

“Oh, kitten, you sure know how to get me all hot and bothered,” Jack said with a smirk.

Rhys was thoroughly unamused by Jack’s comment (which was saying something, since he scoffed at the majority of what Jack considered to be humor). “It’s not funny.”

“Really?” Jack asked, hoping to goad Rhys out of whatever sour mood he was in. “Because I don’t think you even know how to hold a gun.”

The omega simply glared at him. “I don’t have time for this crap, Jack. I have work to do.”

“But that’s boring!” Jack complained, the spitting image of any overly spoiled child.

Rhys shrugged, his fingers still twitching at his sides. “And how is that my problem?”

Rhys’ continued annoyance and downright pissy attitude was beginning to finally cut through Jack’s good humor. Seriously, what was up with him? Yeah, he’d never expressed any praise about his teasing, but the alpha was pretty sure that the usual blush Rhys failed to hide sent the message out pretty clearly.

Jack frowned, watching quietly as Rhys stopped pacing to flip through the stacks of paperwork on his desk. He seemed to be looking for something, his irritation growing as he continued to fumble through the piles of folders. When he accidentally knocked one of the folders off the countertop, sending its contents in a flurry across the room, Jack barely had time to move out of the way before Rhys slammed his cybernetic fist onto the mahogany.

“What the hell are you doing, Rhys?” Jack said, his eyes wide.

Rhys was panting, his hand still resting on the desk. He was staring down at the now-clear surface, considering he’d inadvertently caused the rest of the papers to fly off as well. He flinched as Jack’s hands landed lightly on his shoulders, pulling him back upright.

“Let me see your hand,” he said softly, reaching for the cybernetic as Rhys didn’t react.

The metal, as Jack had suspected, was dented, and the yellow paint was chipped in a few areas. At least now maybe Rhys would agree to upgrading to the newer model instead of clinging to this piece of shit, Jack thought dryly.

“I’m sorry,” Rhys said, so quietly that Jack didn’t think he’d actually heard anything at first. “I don’t-- I don’t know why I did that. I was just so… angry.”

Jack rolled his eyes. “Babe, you know I’m the king of anger management issues.”

“Ha ha, very funny,” Rhys said, bitterly over-accentuating each word.

It was blatantly obvious how un-funny Rhys truly found the situation to be, and Jack stepped closer so that he was staring directly at Rhys. “Really, it’s okay.”

The omega bit his lip, looking down at his shoes. His gaze only flicked up when he felt Jack wrap his arms around him, pulling him close. He kissed Rhys’ forehead, rubbing Rhys’ back with his right hand. Rhys practically melted in his arms, feeling exhausted now that the way-too-intense anger had passed.

“I’m sorry,” he said again.

Jack was quick to shush him, moving to card his fingers through Rhys’ hair. He pulled back with a gasp, however, and Rhys looked at him in confusion.

“Umm… Jack?”

“Your neck,” Jack said, clutching at his hand. “It fucking burned me.”

“What?” Rhys asked, confused.

“Look at this shit,” Jack said, displaying his now reddened fingers.

Rhys frowned, tentatively touching the back of his neck as Jack watched nervously. Sure, the skin felt a bit warm-- but nothing that would _burn_ him. If anything, the pressure on it just made it begin to itch again. “It feels normal.”

“No way,” Jack said, maneuvering Rhys so that he could more closely inspect the area that had so rudely scalded him.

He froze when he saw the scarlet outlines of the bite marks on Rhys’ neck. The wounds had matured into scars in the past few months, and once the bond broke, they would supposedly fade away completely (if Tim’s research was to be trusted). However, his bonding site was currently flushed with blood, tinged with scarlet as darkly as it had been in the first few days after the Incident.

“Rhysie,” he breathed, Rhys shuddering slightly as the exhale raised goosebumps on the sensitive skin. “Your neck.”

“What’s-- what’s wrong with it?” the omega asked, fidgeting with his hands.

“It’s all red.”

Rhys swallowed. “Oh. Is it-- how bad is it?”

Jack paused for a moment. “It’s not pretty.”

“Wonderful,” Rhys said with a sigh. “Let’s just-- let’s not talk about this anymore.”

Jack groaned. “You can’t keep avoiding this, cupcake.”

Rhys snorted, turning around so that he was facing the alpha again. “The hell I can’t.”

“You’ve been acting weird,” Jack said, deciding that now was as good of a time as any to finally broach the topic. “You’re quiet, and moody, and distant--”

Rhys huffed, cutting him off. “You’re exaggerating.”

“You just punched a fucking table!” Jack said, gesturing to the mess that was Rhys’ desk.

Rhys held his tongue, because yeah, he had just punched a fucking table. But that wasn’t his fault, was it? He was just pissed off at his stupid employees and the constant inundation of stupid paperwork and the stupid prickling feeling on his neck…

Rhys froze. “Jack.”

“Yeah, kitten?” He was regarding Rhys cautiously, like some sort of specimen.

“Do you think it’s-- do you think it’s because of the bond? The-- the table-punching, I mean,” he said, flushing.

Now it was Jack’s turn to bite his lip. He hadn’t wanted to be the one to suggest it, but now that Rhys had said it himself… “Maybe. I don’t know, though; do you have a vandalism kink you haven’t told me about?”

Rhys groaned. “Great. This is just great. That _asshole_ is still fucking with me.”

Jack offered a sympathetic smile, but even he knew it looked hollow.

“Wish I’d killed him when I had the chance,” he said under his breath, drawing a real smirk from Jack.

“We’re almost there, babe,” he said, taking Rhys’ flesh hand and pressing a kiss on his knuckles. “Just gotta hold on a bit longer.”

“I don’t want him to make me feel things,” Rhys said, his voice small. “I don’t-- I’m not a bad person, am I?”

“Of course not, pumpkin,” Jack replied. “It’s not your fault this jackass doesn’t know how to keep himself in check.”

Rhys chuckled at that. “Says you.”

“Says me,” Jack said, giving Rhys a peck on the lips. “Now get back to work, I can’t have you air-locking any employees. These nerds are hard to come by.”

“You’re a nerd.”

“Yeah,” Jack said, giving Rhys what felt like the first genuine smile in weeks. “But I’m _your_ nerd.”


	11. Breakfast In Bed... Sort Of

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack and Tim find out more about the bond and how it works, and then Jack tries to be a good boyfriend and fails miserably (but what else is new?). Basically a combo of plot and fluff.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took forever, life's been crazy

"Is that a thing? Can he actually do that to Rhys?"

Jack heard Tim sigh on the other side of the line, but he wasn't about to shut up just yet.    


"Why do you think I'm some sort of expert on this shit?" Tim asked, exhaustion clear in his voice.    


"Because you're the one that figured that stuff out about the bond in the first place!" Jack replied.    


"And?" Tim said, unamused.    


"And this is kind of a big deal! He got so angry he punched his desk!"   


Tim groaned. "I know, Jack; you've told me like five times."   


"Sorry for thinking you could help," Jack said, his tone anything but apologetic. "I guess I'll just let this asshole continue to manipulate my boyfriend."   


"That's not what I said."   


"You didn't have to say it."   


Tim let out another exasperated sigh. "Look, I'll do some more research tomorrow. It's late and, unlike you, normal people actually need to sleep."   


Jack scoffed. "It's only three a.m."   


"Case and point, Jack. Case and point."   


* * *

Jack found his personal ECHOcomm ringing surprisingly early the next day, and raised his eyebrows when he saw Tim's name on the caller ID.    


"Hey kiddo, what's up?"   


"Me, unfortunately," Tim grumbled. Jack could hear the sound of coffee brewing in the background, and just the thought of it made his stomach growl.    


He still had yet to drag himself out of bed, but since it was the weekend, it wasn't like anyone could exactly blame him. He rolled over to ask Rhys if he wanted to be a dear and stick some Eggos in the toaster before he remembered: Rhys wasn't there. He'd been staying over increasingly less often, and the last time he'd seen him had been a few days previous when he'd given the omega his refilled prescription of suppressors. He'd never admit it, but the loneliness was gnawing at Jack. It wasn't as if the alpha lacked friends (Nisha would smack him if he said otherwise), but they weren't exactly up to the same par as Rhys. His entourage would much prefer to punch rather than cuddle with him, and while their gun-smoke-tinged scents were comforting in a familial way, they didn't bring a warm, soothing ease to him in the same way Rhys' did.    


Plus, they'd each be quick to shoot him if he asked for their help with the morning wood he was now unfortunately forced to deal with on his own.    


"So, Timmy," Jack said, yawning as he shifted in his uncomfortably tight boxers. "What'd you find?"   


"Not much," Tim admitted. "They don't exactly go around broadcasting this shit on the ECHOnet."   


Jack stretched the hand not holding the phone up over his head, sighing as he felt his ribs pop in an oh-so-satisfying way. "Tell me something I don't know."   


"Well," Tim began, causing Jack to raise his eyebrows in amusement. "Did you know that Rhys isn't the first person this has happened to?"   


Jack pursed his lips, not wanting to gratify Tim with an answer. Logically, what the beta was saying made perfect sense; despite (as well as because of) the rarity of omegas, they each had a pretty price on their head. And bonding one-- well, that was the rumored key to the kingdom. It made Jack feel like absolute shit to think about, what with him possessing this same biological ability to manipulate and take advantage of someone in a way completely out of their control. He cringed as he thought of how that must make Rhys feel, what anguish it must impart to be so heavily disadvantaged solely by one's genetics.    


"I found what looks like a memoir, written by a lady on Elpis. It took a lot of digging, but, well, I think it might be what you're looking for."   


Jack sat up at that, sliding his legs over the side of the bed. "What does it say?"   


"I didn't have time to read all of it, and some pages were missing, and it was handwritten in this awful cursive that was har--"   


"Tim!" Jack interrupted, knowing from experience that once his body double started rambling, he wouldn't shut up on his own.   


"Right, right, sorry boss," Tim said, sounding embarrassed. "She said even though she ran from the asshole after he, y'know, did it to her, she could still...feel things. 'Alien emotions,' I think she called it."   


"Alien emotions," Jack mused. "And that's what? The name of her top 40 chart topper?"   


Tim snorted. "I dunno. Why don't you ask the Katy Perry on your iPod?"   


"I told you not to talk about that!" Jack snapped, flushing.    


Tim couldn't help but laugh, and he could practically feel Jack's glare through the phone. "You're the one that started a body double program."   


Jack opened and closed his mouth a few times, no words coming out. It was way too damn early for this. "I also started my own hit squad, so you'd better watch your mouth."   


Tim just chuckled again. "I won't tell Rhys, don't worry."    


"You'd better not," Jack muttered, knowing that Rhys would never let him hear the end of it after he'd spent the past year teasing the omega listening to Britney Spears (because seriously, she was the definition of obsolete). "But, anyways, back to these, uh, 'alien emotions.'."   


"Right," Tim said, falling back into a serious demeanor. "Well, basically, she sorta...felt things."   


"'Things' meaning...?" Jack prompted.    


"She said she'd get these random feelings that weren't hers. Through the- through the bond."   


"What type of random feelings?" Jack asked, his heart rate starting to pick up.    


"It says-- fuck, why does it have to be in cursive-- sometimes she'd be scared-- yeah, I think that says scared-- for no reason. There's one part where she's just sitting on the couch and just gets hit with this terror."   


Jack rolled his eyes; great, this was another dead end. "So she had a panic attack?"

"See, that's the thing," Tim continued. "She had no history of anxiety, as far as I can tell."   


"I did a bit of background research," Tim added, sensing that Jack was probably confused.

"Hmm," Jack said, not wanting to trust what Tim was saying just yet. 

"The feeling just came out of nowhere, and it-- her bonding site, it--"

"Spit it out," Jack said through gritted teeth.    


"She said it felt like it was on fire. That's how she knew it had to be him."   


Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit. This was the exact opposite of what he'd wanted to hear. Yes, he'd been the one to ask Tim to do this information scavenging for him in the first place; but what he'd really wanted was for Tim to tell him that it was nothing. To tell him that Rhys' anger was just his anger, not some douchewad alpha projecting his emotions onto him.   


Jack sighed, dragging his hand across his face in anxiety-turned-anger. "Anything else?"   


"Not much. She did say that the bond went away after a while, so at least we know we were right about that part."   


Jack huffed; it was a pretty small victory in the grand scheme of things.    


"I can send you a copy of it, if you want," Tim offered.    


It was common knowledge that Jack wasn't exactly a fan of the whole "reading" thing, but he begrudgingly agreed because if it something involved Rhys, he'd damn well go to the ends of the galaxy and back. No, scratch that-- the alpha wasn't  _ that  _ disgustingly sappy. He'd go through a stalker nest for Rhys (because that was a badass thing to do), but anything more was just... way too endearing.    


He groaned. Fuck his stupid hormones and fuck his ridiculous infatuation and, most importantly, fuck this other alpha that was screwing up his entire life.    


_ And Rhys' life too, _ a small part of his brain supplied.    


"Yeah, sure, whatever," Jack said, cradling the phone against his ear as he slipped on a pair of jeans. "I've gotta go, Timmy, but thanks for the help."   


He ended the call before Tim could utter a "no problem" or some other nice crap that Jack really didn't have time for. He still wasn't sure how someone who was supposedly his doppelganger could be so kind-hearted; it kinda defeated the whole "having an army of badasses" purpose. Rolling his eyes, he tossed his ECHOcomm onto the bedspread and headed into his walk-in closet to find something semi-presentable to wear. 

Semi-presentable, in this case, meant a Hyperion yellow polo shirt, which he rolled up at the sleeves to expose the tattoo encircling his tan wrist. He frowned as he glanced down at it; the design had started to blur a bit, meaning he’d have to get it touched up again soon. And while Jack was by no means a crybaby, that needle managed to wring out a pain far worse than a gunshot wound. He still wasn’t quite sure how Rhys was able to tolerate all the hours of discomfort necessary for such detailed ink, especially on his neck and around his nipple. Jack knew firsthand how sensitive the omega was there.

_ Rhys.  _ Jack couldn’t stop his gaze from flickering to the corner of the closet, from reimagining Rhys cowered so uncharacteristically in the corner. 

The alpha shook his head, opting to check his outfit over in the bathroom while putting on his mask rather than dealing with the unpleasantries of the memory-filled space he was currently in. But that’s why he was doing this in the first place, he had to remind himself. That’s why he was dragging his ass out of bed on a weekend to buy his boyfriend breakfast in a nauseatingly mushy display of affection. 

Rhys needed to know that Jack cared. And even if Rhys told Jack almost religiously that he was fine and that he felt better on his own--on his own  _ without Jack _ \-- well, Jack had never been a fan of following the rules, and he wasn’t about to start now.

* * *

Jack cursed as he felt his phone starting to vibrate in his pocket. His hands were full of a box of fancy frosted donuts, on top of which was balanced a coffee carrier. The barista had given him a look when he’d ordered five pumps of caramel in one of the drinks, and he unashamedly snapped at her that the CEO of the  _ entire fucking space station _ could order whatever he damn well pleased in his coffee. Besides, he happened to know a pretty little thing who, despite his proclaimed love of black coffee, loved the sweet taste on Jack’s lips. 

The barista’s violated expression had Jack cackling the entire way to Rhys’ apartment.

The alpha grunted as he attempted to shift his pile of goodies onto his left palm, digging in his pocket for his phone with his right. 

“Hello?” he asked, answering the phone without even bothering to check the caller ID. He didn’t have enough caffeine in his bloodstream yet to think about the fact that ignoring annoying people was probably more effective than trying to airlock them all after the fact.

Luckily, he wasn’t met with the cringe worthy voice of any of his subordinates pestering him about a deadline or pay raise or other useless, irrelevant complaint. 

“Hey Jack! I, uh, didn’t think you’d be up so early.”

Jack chuckled. “Hiya, cupcake!”

He could hear some commotion going on in the background, and a moment later Rhys spoke again. “Did you want to-- ugh, I can’t believe I’m saying this…”

The alpha resumed his trek to Rhys’ apartment, which was just at the end of the hallway.

Rhys’ next words came out in a strung-together rush. “Did you want to go to brunch? With, um, with me?”

Jack could feel the corners of his lips curling up in a smile, something about the way Rhys always managed to be awkward and nervous around him after all this time coming off as quite charming. 

“‘Course I do, Rhysie.”

Donuts and coffee in bed could count as brunch, Jack supposed as he neared Rhys’ shared apartment. 

“Alright, I’ll send you the name of the place. See you in an hour?”

“Kitten, I think I’ll be seeing you a bit sooner than you thi _ iiiiii--” _

Jack’s line had been going so smoothly. At least, he’d thought it had been. His balancing act, however, hadn’t been so fortunate. Rhys’ neighbors had left their newspaper (asshole freakin old people) outside their door, perfectly placed so that Jack’s above-your-pay-grade shoe had slipped on it. Meaning Jack’s suave line had been cut short. Meaning that the alpha had fallen on his ass in a loud, impromptu bang. 

Meaning that when Rhys poked his head out the door to investigate the commotion, he found Jack on the floor covered in the wreckage of what had once been breakfast.

“Jack?” he asked, covering his mouth with his hand in what Jack knew was an attempt to hide a grin.

“Hey Rhysie,” Jack sighed, shooting him a less-than-glamorous smile. “Wanna help me up here?”

“Depends,” Rhys said, stepping out into the hallway towards Jack. “Were these donuts for me?”

The alpha laughed, shifting the dented box of pastries off of him and holding up a hand to Rhys. The omega rolled his eyes, muttering something along the lines of “drama queen” as he interlaced his fingers with Jack’s. 

“Why are you so heavy?” he grunted, digging his heels into the ground as he raised Jack up to stand, the alpha resting his weight on him and pulling him into a hug. “And quit it, your stupid coffee is getting me all sticky.”

“Never heard you complain about me getting you sticky before, pumpkin,” Jack said with a smirk, pecking a kiss onto Rhys’ forehead as the omega blushed.

“Ew, seriously?”

Rhys flushed even deeper at the sound of Vaughn’s voice and the knowledge that Vaughn had most definitely understood what Jack had just insinuated. 

“You didn’t tell me Short Stuff was here,” Jack whispered into Rhys’ ear, a bit upset they wouldn’t be having alone time. 

Rhys rolled his eyes. “He lives here too. And besides, he’s the reason I invited you, it’s supposed to be a sort of--”

“Double date!”

Rhys and Jack both looked to see Vaughn’s girlfriend, Leia, peering at them with a grin over the beta’s shoulder. She waved when she caught their gaze, beckoning for them to come inside as she retreated back into the apartment.

“Shall we?” Jack asked, scooping up the remnants of what would’ve been a freakin’ awesome surprise breakfast and following Rhys inside.

Once Jack had recovered from his tripping incident (that nobody should ever talk about if they wanted to keep their limbs attached their body), he noticed that Rhys looked like he’d just rolled out of bed. Rhys’ cybernetic arm wasn’t attached, leaving the right sleeve of his faded t-shirt to hang limply at the shoulder. His normally gelled-back hair was still in a sleep-rumpled disarray, and Jack felt a bit of heat rush to his face as he noticed the way Rhys’ red pajama pants managed to cling to his body in all the right places despite their obvious wear-and-tear.

“Ooh, are these for us?” Leia asked, excitedly pointing to the food Jack was holding.

“Well, they were for Rhys, but I guess if you ask real nice…”

“No way!” Rhys interjected, snagging the dented yet still intact box of donuts. “These are mine!”

Leia snorted. “And here I thought you were a gentleman.”

“I am,” Rhys said, popping the lid off the box. “A gentleman whose boyfriend brought  _ me _ donuts.”

Leia made to lunge for the goodies, but Vaughn wrapped his arm around her waist to hold her back. “Let Rhys have them, since he already seems so deadset on making us late.”

“Not cool, bro!” Rhys threw Vaughn an accusatory look. “And fine, you can have some-- just don’t touch the ones with the chocolate sprinkles.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Leia said, rolling her eyes. “Now go take a shower, you stink.”

“ _ You _ stink,” Rhys shot back lamely, taking another bite of his donut before handing the box off to her and heading towards the bathroom.

Jack looked down at his clothes, which were covered in coffee stains. Now that he thought about it, a shower did sound nice-- especially a shower with Rhys…

“No way.”

Jack looked up as Vaughn was staring him down (or, rather, staring him up, what with the height difference). “What?”

“You’re not going in there,” he said firmly. “I will  _ not _ have you two banging in my shower.”

Jack struggled to choke back a laugh. He hadn’t even noticed he’d been edging towards the bathroom. “Come on, Muscles. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

Vaughn gagged, sending both Jack into a fit of laughter. “You’re disgusting.”

Even Leia was giggling at this point, as much as she was trying to hide it from her affronted-looking boyfriend. She was attempting to hone all her focus into putting on a pair of earrings (as both she and Vaughn were already dressed and ready to go), but her hair kept getting in her way. “Help?” she asked, looking up innocently.

“No way,” Vaughn said. “You sided with  _ him _ .” He talked about Jack as if he were a disease he didn’t want too close to him.

Jack took the opportunity to piss off Vaughn even further, walking over to Leia and lightly pulling back her dreadlocks so that she could actually get to her ears. The tips of her hair were dyed blue, the color matching the vibrant hue of her eyes, which stood in stark pale contrast to her dark skin. 

“Thanks,” she said, sticking her tongue out at Vaughn as she affixed the jewelry. 

Jack smirked, especially as Leia pulled a ponytail off her wrist to tie her hair into a low bun. 

“Seriously?” Vaughn groaned, hating the sly look Jack and Leia gave each other. 

“Sorry babe,” Leia said, standing and kissing Vaughn lightly on the lips. “But it’s just way too fun to annoy you.”

“And easy!” Jack added, his expression smug.

“Alright, alright.” Vaughn sounded resigned as he raised his hands in surrender. Why did Rhys and his stupidly long hair-styling routine have to abandon him with these two? “Can someone go tell Rhys to hurry his ass up?”

It took Jack a moment to realize that Vaughn was referring to him. “Sure thing, cupcake,” he said with a salute, not even minding the super transparent excuse Vaughn had thrust onto him to get the alpha to leave. 

The door to the bathroom was cracked open, and Jack quietly entered without knocking. It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen every inch of the omega before, after all. He expected to see Rhys combing his hair or drowning himself in cologne.

He didn’t expect to see Rhys standing shirtless in the center of the room, unmoving, while staring at his reflection in the mirror.

“Uh, Rhysie?” he asked, snapping his fingers. 

Rhys jolted as if he’d been shocked, turning to face Jack as color flooded his cheeks. “Oh, uh, sorry Jack. Kinda zoned out there.”

“No kidding,” Jack said, shaking his head in bemusement before stepping forward and kissing Rhys. 

“Ew, get off! I just got clean!”

Jack chuckled. “Sorry, cupcake. I didn’t exactly come with a change of clothes.”

“I can give you some of mine to wear,” Rhys offered, scratching at the back of his neck. His nervous tic was becoming even more pronounced, and in all honesty it was worrisome to Jack. 

“I don’t know if you noticed, kitten, but I ain’t exactly a beanstalk like you.” Ignoring anxiety with humor, Jack thought to himself. Classic. 

“Rude!” Rhys said in fake, overexaggerated offense. “I guess you’ll just have to wear Vaughn’s clothes instead.”

Jack groaned at the prospect, but at least Vaughn had a similarly bulky build. “Fine,” he said, holding out his hand to Rhys. “Let’s just get this over with.”

“You mean the clothes or the brunch?” Rhys asked, smiling. 

Jack felt a grin stretch across his face as well. “Both, pumpkin. Definitely both.”


	12. Feverish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> rhys gets sick. like, really sick.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope y'all don't mind this chapter is kinda short, i just wanted to get it out there sooner than later. also, this is where shit starts getting real.

Rhys rolled out of bed at 5am and barely made it to the bathroom before he started puking. 

He'd skinned his knees on the floor tiles in his haste, and they stung as he clung to the toilet bowl as if it was for dear life. His mouth and throat felt raw and disgusting, and tears were leaking from his the corners of his eyes. 

He wondered if he'd eaten something weird yesterday at their double date brunch; he’d told Vaughn on multiple occasions that the restaurant owner had it out for him, but of course his bro had ignored him when Leia had suggested eating there (the beta claimed they were on equal footing, but there was no doubt he was the submissive one in their relationship). Rhys groaned as he realized this meant that he'd probably have to call in sick to work. It wasn't like he'd get in any sort of trouble; he was basically his own boss, after all. But he really did have a lot of crap to get done.

When his nausea finally decided to grant him a moment's reprieve, Rhys slowly rose to feet and wiped his face off with a towel, furiously swirling mouthwash until the nasty taste was out of his mouth. He'd be fine. He knew he would. He'd already gotten behind enough due to his heat last month (although Jack constantly told him not to worry about it), and there was nothing a hot shower and some ibuprofen couldn't fix.

* * *

Three hours later, it became blatantly obvious to Rhys that a hot shower and some ibuprofen couldn't fix a lot of things. He was plagued with a migraine that was likely partially due to his purposeful lack of caffeine intake, and it didn't abate even after he threw up in the staff bathroom. He could barely stand due to his combination of physical maladies and now-empty stomach, and he didn't hate himself so much that he wouldn't eventually give in to his coworkers' insistence that he take the rest of the day off. Janey had offered to cancel his meetings for him so that he didn't have to deal with all the PR flak, and according to her, both Maliwan and Atlas had only been slightly upset about the change in plans. Rhys knew that Janey sometimes tended to sugarcoat things, so for his and the company's sake he hoped she was telling him the truth. 

His apartment was empty when he arrived home, which wasn't exactly surprising; Vaughn was at Leia's place so often that he probably should start contributing to her rent, too. It was fine, though; Rhys didn't exactly have the strongest immune system, so dealing with any sort of bug was one of his many necessary talents. He pulled out a bag of plain crackers from the cupboard to at least get something in his system before taking more medication, washing down the chalky taste of the pills with a swig of ginger ale.

Settling down on the couch, Rhys shot a quick text to Jack informing him that he wouldn't be able to make it to their lunch date. He then put his ECHOcomm away, because the harshness of the light emitted from the screen was triggering his headache again. He could feel the medication kicking in and bolstering his already overwhelming exhaustion, and just the thought of a nap sounded like heaven. He didn't bother to wait for Jack's response before he was stripping out of his work clothes, removing his cybernetic arm, and crawling into bed. He fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. 

* * *

When Rhys woke up after what his ECHOeye revealed to be three hours of dreamless sleep, he found himself feeling even more exhausted than before. _Great,_ he thought to himself, rubbing at his bleary eyes. _This was just great._

He turned over onto his side to check his phone, seeing a missed call from Jack. But with the way his head was throbbing, talking to his boyfriend on the phone was on the top of his list of things he didn't want to do.  He sighed as he grabbed an extra pillow from the other side of the bed and pressed it over his face, trying to alleviate the pain of his headache that _still_ hadn't fucking gone away. Taking more medication surely had to be the solution to this problem, he decided, and after another moment of holding the pillow to his head, he kicked back the covers and headed towards the bathroom medicine cabinet. 

He made it halfway to the bathroom before he was hit with terrible vertigo, and had to cling to the door frame so as to not fall over.

"Shit," he muttered, blinking a few times and willing away the dark spots clouding his vision. He must've been sicker than he'd originally thought.

As soon as he felt somewhat stable on his legs, he popped a double dosage of pills because, well, desperate times called for desperate measures. He splashed the rest of the water he'd used to swallow the medicine on his face, the coolness refreshing. He wet his hands, rubbing the water onto his forehead where the headache felt worst. The skin beneath his fingers felt warm, he realized. Too warm. Fuck, did he have a fever? Because he really didn't have time for that.

Now that he thought about it, he did feel pretty hot. How had he not noticed it when he'd first woken up? Beads of sweat were dripping down his back, and he quickly divested himself of his shirt. The paleness of his now-exposed chest and tattoos accentuated the redness in his face that he hadn't seen before, _how had he not seen it before_ , and he stared at his reflection in confusion. 

He leaned in closer to the mirror, trying to get a better look at what appeared to be some sort of trick the light was playing on his eyes. Every part of his body looked distorted and fuzzy, a sort of blend of colors that didn't seem to belong to him. He wasn't sure how long he stood there, studying himself like he was trying to read another language or, better yet, trying to read another language while blind. He was only shaken from his daze when an alert popped up on his ECHOeye. Rhys frowned, because although he wasn't totally confident about what was happening to him at the moment, he clearly remembered turning all his notifications off. 

His confusion dissipated, however, when he saw that the message was from a private priority number. In other words, it was from Jack. 

The message was simple, just asking Rhys where he was. He didn't quite know why the alpha needed that information, but he sent a GPS pinpoint in response out of a desire to actually do something useful that day. Maybe Jack was worried about him-- although, if Rhys was being honest with himself, he didn’t really care about. He was an adult and could take care of himself, Jack’s helicopter-like caretaking of him unnecessary and even embarrassing.

It was this adult skillset that implored Rhys to stumble from the bathroom into the kitchen, falling to his knees in front of the small freezer and pulling it open rather than getting himself a much-needed glass of water. He quickly took stock of its contents before removing a half-eaten tub of ice cream which he’d written his name on the lid of. The omega was struck with a strange sense of uncoordination as he grappled with the container, finally popping it open only to realize he’d forgotten a spoon.

Frowning, Rhys dragged himself up to stand, momentarily blacking out and latching onto the back of a chair for support. His vision was swimming, and he could just barely make out the form of the drawer where the silverware was kept. He took an experimental step forward, but his balance was fucked beyond the point of no return, and he went back to leaning against the chair.

What the hell was wrong with him?

Rhys scratched at the back of his neck as he ran through a list of all the maladies he may have contracted, who may have wanted to poison him, and how he could cure himself as soon as possible because shit he hated being sick. However, aside from his earlier theory (which seemed a little too insignificant to have catalyzed such a severe reaction), he couldn’t come up with anything.

He dug his nails harder into his neck in frustration, the action only worsening the itch. When his nails raked across the still-healing scar on the back of his neck, his vision vanished completely as a jolt ran down his spine. It happened again as he continued to scratch, although this time he felt his hips buck forward of their own volition. The omega whined involuntarily at the lack of friction, realizing that his dick had gotten hard without his noticing. Sure, Jack had joked about him popping a boner over ice cream, but this… this was ridiculous. He would’ve assumed it was just a random fluke of nature if it weren’t for the fact that he suddenly felt really, really turned on.

He blinked slowly, losing himself to a steadily growing fog in his brain before he registered that he was gyrating his hips against the chair in front of him. What the fuck? Why was he there half-naked in the kitchen, partially delirious with the burning running from the back of his neck through the rest of his body, nauseous as hell, and indescribably horny? He needed to know, needed to find out if maybe this was some sort of assassination attempt (albeit a strange one).

But then he froze, even his hips slowing to a stop. Oh. _Oh._

Rhys sprinted back into his bedroom with all the energy he could muster, fumbling for his ECHOcomm and attempting to send Vaughn a message. He hoped it wouldn’t be too late.

He didn’t even have time to wait for a response before he was dragged back into delirium.


	13. The Other, Less-Wealthy 1%

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a look back into rhys' past and what being an omega is like (aka the unluckiest 1%, in his bonafied opinion).
> 
> slight nsfw in this chapter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> two chapters in two days. slow updater whom??

Rhys had lived alone for the first five years he'd been on Helios before moving in with Vaughn and, to be quite honest, he hadn't really minded it-- that is, until his landlord had raised his already ridiculously high monthly rent. He knew that living on Helios could be expensive, but he'd never imagined that people were expected to make enough money to cover such bills.

So when the beta had made the offhand suggestion that he could just move into the extra bedroom at Rhys' place so that he'd finally stop bitching about the rent, Rhys had immediately agreed. Vaughn had been his best bro since he'd first moved to Helios, and living together would mean that it would be way easier for them to hang out and just, y'know, be bros. They could play video games and eat pizza and talk about girls (because Vaughn adamantly shot down any conversation Rhys tried to start about cute guys in his department since that shit made him uncomfortable okay). This was shaping up to be the best idea ever.

Then Rhys realized he'd have to tell Vaughn the truth about his endotype, and suddenly rooming together seemed like a very, very bad idea.

He'd learned early on that being an omega meant permanently sacrificing normality and trust. His father had booked it ("hopefully straight to hell," his mother always said) once he'd smelled that telltale citrus scent and seen the small patch of pinkish skin on the back of his son's neck. And so his mother, a mousy-haired beta with a knack for crocheting, had raised him herself. She placed a lot of emphasis on his schooling, both traditionally and in omega biology.

"You've got to know how to take care of yourself," she'd said, handing him yet another dusty library book.

At first Rhys had thought of himself as special, since everybody else he knew was either an alpha or a beta. It bothered him that his mother forced him to keep his endotype a secret, forced him to drink foul-tasting home-brewed concoctions to mask his scent and "keep his heat down," whatever that meant. It wasn't until he hit high school that he realized what all the hush-hush was about. "Omega" became an insult hurled at anyone showing weakness, and more than once he'd heard guys and girls alike talking about what they'd force an omega to do if they got one in bed with them.

It was this sort of talk that spurred him to graduate early, hoping that maybe he could meet someone as "rare" as him at college. Unfortunately, he had no such luck, and ended up throwing himself even further into his schoolwork.

This insane dedication had allowed him to skip a few grades, so when his mother died just before his graduation, he was only 20 years old. It was after this, once she'd stopped sending him the fowl-tasting concoctions that he obligingly drank every night, that he finally realized what a heat truly meant.

Sure, he'd had a few mild ones before; but those were nothing more than fevers that would let up in a week. All he'd had to do was stay home sick from class for a bit each month, and although he was also left uncomfortably horny, a trip to an adult store and the luxury of a his own tiny apartment made it bearable.

The first heat after his mother passed was nothing like that. He was delirious and hallucinating and damn all he wanted was sex-- sex with an alpha, that's what he needed. Luckily, the girl he was casually dating at the time happened to be of this very endotype, and she was more than happy to take care of what was basically a very desperate booty call.

However, when she arrived at his door, her nostrils flared, detecting a scent that sent shivers down her spine. She'd never smelled it up close before, but her body knew what it was: An omega in heat begging to be fucked.

In his desperation, Rhys hadn't even considered the fact that this would reveal his best-kept secret, the one that he took painstaking measures to hide from even his closest friends (not that he had many-- being the youngest, newly graduated Dahl programmer in the entire friggin' company didn't lend itself to popularity).

Sure, the discovery had shocked the girl-- the girl whose name Rhys had since either forgotten or repressed-- but she was more than on board with the idea. The heavy smell of citrusy pheromones triggered instincts within her that she hadn't even known existed before, and it didn't take long for her to drag an extremely horny Rhys into his bedroom and push him down onto sheets.

They spent the next few days just fucking, the alpha on top and riding Rhys til her legs got sore. The omega luxuriated in it, craving sex and needing to be dominated. The girl sometimes took breaks to make Rhys' various microwavable meals, even offering some of the food to Rhys. But when the omega said he wasn't interested, she didn't push it. If Rhys didn't want to eat, then that was his problem.

It was on the third day, when Rhys was barely coherent and the alpha couldn't even touch him without feeling like she'd been burned, that she told him that she needed to leave. She was exhausted and behind in her schoolwork, she said. She hadn't been lucky enough to have been born a genius like Rhys.

But the reasoning was lost on the omega, who felt lost and betrayed and overall just plain confused. He kept asking her why she was going, and she eventually grew tired of having to reexplain herself. Rhys tried to stop her as she made to move to the door, but she shoved him off, glaring.

"I'm going," she said forcefully, her glare just daring Rhys to make another attempt at her. "And you're staying here."

Rhys looked at her for a moment from where he was now crouched on the floor before responding. "Okay."

 _Okay?_ the alpha thought to herself, bewildered. _That was it? No more struggling?_ And then it clicked. It was way more than a power trip, a bolt of control flashing through her brain like lightning. So the rumors were right; she could force this omega to do whatever she wanted.

She smirked. "Beg. Beg for me to stay."

She was drunk on endorphins and pheromones and yeah, also on power. Now that she finally understood and complied with her instincts, there was no going back.

"Please," Rhys said quietly, not meeting her eyes. "Please don't go."

Her grin widened as she stepped towards the omega, threading her fingers through his shaggy, sweaty hair. Then she tugged. Rhys yelped as she lifted his head to face her, a wolfish look on her face as she stared down at him. "Tough luck, buttercup."

She released her grip on him and shunted him off of her before heading out the door without so much as a backwards glance. As she rode the elevator back down to the lobby, she smiled to herself-- just wait until she told the others about her little discovery. About how _she_ , yes her, had dominated an omega begging to be fucked silly. And, most importantly, about how the fling that had also cheated her out of every top-of-the-class mark in school in his quest to graduate early was nothing more than a stupid, cowering omega bitch.

* * *

Rhys' life became hell from then on. He'd skipped town once even Dahl had gotten wind of the (true) rumor that their newest recruit was an omega, moving to Hollow Point near a Maliwan facility and securing a job in middle management. It wasn't as exciting-- nor as lucrative-- as programming had been, but at least there he was treated as an equal. He was getting better at masking his scent, and had even found a shady dude named Zed who was willing to sell him heat suppressors on the down-low. Things appeared to be shaping up, especially when Rhys met a ridiculously attractive guy named August who also happened to think that Rhys was pretty cute.

Rhys felt much safer knowing that the man who soon became his boyfriend was a beta; while he knew he was probably stereotyping a bit, it was difficult to deny the effect of instincts.

August was kind, although Rhys still found himself rejecting any offers to move in together. He didn't tell August why, and whenever the beta asked about it, Rhys silenced him with kisses and a damn good blowjob that quickly cut off any questioning. It made him feel guilty, keeping the truth from his boyfriend who'd trusted him with the story of how his mother had abused him as a kid; the scars littering his back more than attested to it.

When they hit six months together, the omega's resolve to deny the requests to move in together crumbled, so he downed way more shots than his lightweight body could handle and told August the truth. He'd blurted it out with a bit of a slur to his speech, and while the beta looked momentarily confused, he quickly shrugged and told Rhys that it was no big deal.

It became a big deal when a bandit knocked the door to his home off its hinges in the middle of the night and pinned his arms behind his back.

"What the hell?" Rhys grunted, trying to elbow the guy off of him.

"Quit squirming," the bandit ordered, his voice deep.

Rhys did the opposite, rearing his leg back and kicking the man in his crotch before connecting his cybernetic elbow with his face. The bandit howled, releasing Rhys, and the omega freed himself from his grasp.

"August," he said anxiously, shaking his ridiculously deep-sleeping boyfriend's shoulder in an attempt to rouse him. "August, someone just tried to attack me."

The beta cracked an eye open. "What?"

"There's a bandit in here," Rhys hissed, gesturing to the man clutching at his groin in pain from where he'd been knocked onto the floor. "I think he was trying to kidnap me."

August frowned. "Already?" He yawned, oblivious to Rhys' confusion as he continued to murmur; his tiredness had unblocked any of his secretiveness. "I told them to wait another month..."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Rhys growled as he took a step back.

"I wanted to get you through a heat without those stupid pills, babe."

Rhys recoiled in disgust, the pieces falling into place in his mind. "You sick fuck!"

August managed to look self-satisfied despite the fact that he was still half asleep.

"Come on, Rhysie. Don't tell me you don't want it."

"I don't, asshole!" Rhys snapped.

"Guess it's a good thing they came early, then," August said.

"Hey, you, bandit guy," August said as he sat up and turned to the figure on the floor. "Where's that five mil you promised me?"

Rhys felt his blood run cold. August had been trying to sell him.

He'd heard about the illicit omega sex trade before, the one that pimped people out like slaves to anyone looking to blow some serious dough. The underground operation even rented out omegas in heat (for an extra fee, of course). Had August really planned to subject him to that? Was their relationship, not to mention Rhys' freedom, worth less than a fat stack of cash?

These were the questions that made Rhys sick to his stomach as he bolted from the house, too afraid to take the time to bring anything with him other than the clothes on his back. He needed to get out of there, and fast.

He ran to the launch bay and booked a ticket for the next spaceship to Helios.

* * *

Considering his past experiences with revealing his endotype, it was reasonable for Rhys to be highly wary of telling Vaughn the truth. No, scratch that-- he was absolutely terrified. If this went south, Rhys would lose not only his best friend but also the standing he'd started to build for himself at Hyperion. Vaughn didn't seem like the type to run his mouth, but with Rhys' track record... he might as well start packing up to move to Elpis and hit up Torgue for employment at this point.

Despite his anxiety, Rhys also knew that the beta would figure it out sooner or later, what with their newly close quarters. He couldn't exactly hide his heats, even when using suppressors, and his scent in general would send up red flags. And if Vaughn found out he'd lied to him... well, that would be worse than the outright rejection.

In the face of all his trepidation, Vaughn didn't grimace or get that mischievous, "I'm going to take advantage of you" look on his face that Rhys had come to expect. Instead, he was staring at the omega in awe.

"Seriously?" he said, his surprise overpowered by his awed interest.

"Um, yeah, last time I checked," Rhys said with a weak chuckle, nervously scratching at the back of his neck.

"That's so cool, bro!"

That was _not_ the reaction he'd been prepared for.

"W-what?" he asked, utterly confused.

"You guys are so rare!" Vaughn said, looking Rhys over like he was a brand new video game that the beta had found under the Christmas tree.

Rhys shrugged. "I guess so."

"Are the rumors true?"

The omega cringed. Here came the judgment, here came the rejection.

"I'm not-- Vaughn, you know me bro, I'm not some sort of pushover slut."

"Pushover-- what the hell are you talking about? I meant, like, the whole bonding thing."

"Oh," Rhys said, looking down at the ground as his cheeks flushed.

"And back up, did someone actually say that to you? Because I started kickboxing and I'll go kick their ass."

Rhys laughed, putting a hand on Vaughn's shoulder to try to calm his far too amusing rage. "Don't worry, I left all those douchebags back on Pandora."

Vaughn raised his eyebrows, and Rhys bit his lip as he realized he hadn't actually told Vaughn where he'd lived before Helios.

"Yeah, I, uh, grew up planet-side. A Pandoran omega," Rhys said, chuckling bitterly. "Quite the winning combo."

Vaughn frowned, trying to communicate his sympathy without coming off as just pitying him. The beta saved Rhys from the awkwardness of having to explain the rest of his clearly uncomfortable past by steering the conversation back to his various questions about the apparently novel aspects of Rhys' biology. Did he have heats? Was the citrus scent thing true? Had he ever bonded someone?

Rhys felt like he was on a damn talk show. He didn't really mind answering the questions, protesting only when Vaughn asked to see his bonding site.

"Sorry bro, it's just kinda... sensitive," he finished lamely.

Vaughn nodded, thankfully not seeming upset. The novelty of Rhys' endotype wore off after a few days, and soon they were back to just being regular bros-- regular bros who were now roommates. Rhys loved the ability to be himself around the beta, loved not having to hide who he was; at least, not having to hide it inside the privacy of their apartment.

He felt at ease around Vaughn, as well as around Jack after he'd come clean (although that had been in the form of Jack busting into the apartment while Rhys was holed up in his room waiting out his heat fever and connecting the dots on his own, so Rhys wasn't sure if he could even give himself props for that one). Maybe it was this comfort that made him less rigid in his scent-masking regiment. Maybe it was what lulled him into a false sense of security. Maybe it was what caused the intel to leak out that Rhys was an omega.

Maybe it was what had gotten him into the mess with the bond in the first place. Because that's how it went, his biology screwing him over every singe fucking time he thought he'd found something good in his life.

And there was nothing he could do about it.


	14. It's Getting Hot In Here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> vaughn finds rhys and isn't too happy about what he sees

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so take off all your clothes
> 
> support me by buying me a coffee at ko-fi.com/dragonbagel

“Rhys?” Vaughn called, knocking on the door to his friend’s room. “You in there?”

There came what sounded like a strangled moan from the other side of the door, but no verbal response.

“Uh… bro?” Vaughn asked, taking a step back. He really, really didn’t need to walk in on Rhys and Jack fucking again because that had honestly given him enough trauma to last a lifetime.

He didn’t receive a reply from Rhys other than another groan, and every “Rhys forgot to put a sock on his door but seriously don’t go in there” alarm in his head was blaring.

But then he remembered the garbled text for help he'd received from Rhys earlier, and he pushed his reservations to the back of his mind. And if he did end up seeing the two of them mid-sex... well, he had no issue hiding all of Rhys' ice cream at Leia's (although, strangely, he’d seen a carton of it melting on the kitchen floor when he’d sprinted through it).

"Rhys, I'm coming in," he said, taking a deep breath before pushing open the unlocked door.

He nearly stumbled as he entered the room, a horrifically acrid scent making him gag.

"Rhys?" he croaked, his eyes watering.

The lights in the room were all off, and Vaughn continued to cough as he fumbled for the switch. Maybe it was because of the small, enclosed space, but Vaughn had never witnessed Rhys' scent so strong before.

"I'm turning on the lights, okay?" he asked, the lack of any response from Rhys setting him on edge.

Rhys used to hole up in his room quite frequently when going through a particularly bad depressive episode, but he'd never directly asked Vaughn for help or failed to curse at the beta for entering his private moping space.

Something was wrong.

A low whine resounded in the room as the overhead light flickered to life, and Vaughn saw something shifting on Rhys' bed underneath a mound of his Handsome Jack-themed blankets.

"Bro?" he asked cautiously, covering his mouth and nose as he stepped closer to ward off the overwhelming scent of citrus.

When no response came, Vaughn said a mental "fuck it" and peeled back the sheets.

The sight he was met with caused him to stumble back in shock.

"P-please. P-please help."

Vaughn met Rhys' tear-filled eyes as the omega stammered at him in fear.

"What's going on?" Vaughn asked, immediately in "best bro protection" mode.

"P-please," Rhys said again, biting his lip in a grimace and clutching at his pillow with a death grip from where he was lying on his front.

Vaughn's stomach dropped when he saw that Rhys was naked and rutting against the mattress.

"Rhys," he said, placing his hand on the omega's hot-to-the-touch bare shoulder. "Have you been taking your suppressors?"

Rhys nodded as fresh tears slid down his cheeks, causing his fists to clench even tighter and prompting him to press his face into the pillow.

"Then how..." Vaughn trailed off, unsure of who he was even asking the question to. He'd personally never seen it before, but from the limited horror stories Rhys had told him and what he'd read online, Vaughn had a pretty good idea of what was going on.

Rhys was in a full-on unsuppressed heat.

"Shit," Vaughn said, starting to pace as Rhys grunted in an effort to keep his hands off of himself. "Shit, shit, shit. Bro, what do we do?"

Rhys had been on suppressors throughout the entirety of his and Vaughn's friendship, and he'd told the beta that he'd started taking them as soon as he could get his hands on them. Because heats were miserable and dangerous. Which meant Rhys was currently miserable and in danger.

Rhys didn't respond, couldn't respond. His body felt like it was on fire, and he couldn't remember the last time he'd been so uncomfortably sex-crazed; his regular suppressed heats were nothing compared to this. He couldn't think of anything other than his painful arousal and underlying panic, and the lack of mental clarity was freaking him out even further. He could feel his coherency slipping away from him, drowning in the fever despite how desperately he tried to cling to it.

"Please," Rhys repeated, as a plea for help seemed to be the only words his brain was able to form. He didn't even know what he was asking for.

For Vaughn to make it stop hurting. For Vaughn to go get him help. For Vaughn to take pity and have sex with him.

"I'll be right back bro," Vaughn said, turning towards the bathroom. "Just-- stay there, okay?"

The only response he got from Rhys was another groan, and Vaughn quickly headed into the other room. He pulled out Rhys' container of pills, not fully believing that Rhys had been taking his meds as he claimed. Yet it was just as he'd said; every slot of pills for the past days had been emptied. Which made no fucking sense.

Vaughn stumbled as something suddenly crashed into him from behind, medications scattering onto the countertop and floor from the containers Vaughn had been inspecting.

"What the--"

"Vaughn!"

The beta staggered backwards, the weight of Rhys' body now clinging to him toppling him off center.

"Bro, get off me," Vaughn hissed, trying in vain to pry the omega off of him. Rhys was rubbing himself against Vaughn, holding him tightly and grinding against his leg.

"Get off!" he said again, shoving at Rhys. This time, the omega obeyed, untangling himself from Vaughn and sliding down to sit on the floor. He pulled his knees up to his chest, looking down in what appeared to be shame.

After a moment's silence, Rhys jerked forward onto all fours, shoving past Vaughn as he latched onto the still-open toilet bowl, retching.

Vaughn tried to pat his back in sympathy, but Rhys was still very, very naked and Vaughn was very, very uncomfortable. Rhys was also running a high fever, if the burning sensation Vaughn could feel the aftershock of in his fingers was anything to go by.

"C'mon, let's get you cooled off," Vaughn said softly after Rhys finished dry heaving, not knowing what to do but wanting to help nonetheless.

Rhys remained on the floor, arms resting on the toilet seat and unfocused gaze trained on the wall.

"Uh, bro?" Vaughn asked, waving his hand in front of Rhys' face in an attempt to grab his attention. "Can you hear me?"

When Rhys stayed unresponsive, Vaughn anxiously took his temperature, hoping it wouldn't be too high and therefore easy to cool off. But of course it was his luck that the thermometer already read 105.

"Fuck," Vaughn muttered, his worry growing as Rhys began pressing his face against Vaughn's thigh, whining. The Rhys he knew was calm, collected, and logical, and would never try to pull anything on Vaughn. Yet here he was, completely submissive and irrational and trying to convince Vaughn to have sex with him.

"Please," Rhys said again, his eyes completely glossed over and strangely vacant in contrast to his overbearing physical presence. "Please, please Vaughn."

The beta's chest felt tight. Rhys had never acted like this around him before, and it was unnerving. It was also terrifying, knowing that the entire situation (and its consequences) was in Vaughn's hands.

"Bro, come on," Vaughn said, gently pushing Rhys away from him. "I need you to snap out of it. You're-- you're scaring me."

Rhys didn't seem to hear him, refusing to acknowledge anything other than the fact that Vaughn was rejecting him. He looked up at the beta from where he still sat on the floor, his eyes wide and expression betrayed.

"Why are you...hmm, no...alpha, my alpha, mine...I can't...shit it's so hot in here..."

Vaughn stared at Rhys, trying to decode his rambling. "What the hell are you saying, dude?"

"That's not...no, it'll go away...Tim...Timmy said."

"What did he say to you, Rhys?" Vaughn had never met Tim before, but he knew from what Rhys had told him that the beta was a sweetheart.

"Bond...the bond," he said, his gaze still lingering on Vaughn as his eyes glossed over further.

"What bond?" Vaughn asked, his voice suddenly panicky. "Did you bond with Jack?"

"Hmm," Rhys replied, as apparently even incoherent speech was too much effort for him.

Vaughn carefully reached forward to brush the bottom strands of Rhys' hair away from his neck, revealing the still-red scars of a bite mark across his bonding site.

"Holy shit," he breathed, shivering as Rhys leaned into his touch with a sigh.

"Should I-- do you want me to get Jack?"

"He said...fuck I need it...Vaughn please," Rhys begged, turning around to pout and give the beta a strange cross between puppy-dog and bedroom eyes.

"I told you, it's not happening," Vaughn said, trying to keep his voice firm despite his clear panic.

"Why is it...where is he?" Rhys asked, fear suddenly overtaking him.

"Listen," Vaughn said with a sigh. "I'll get Jack if you just-- for the love of god, keep your hands to yourself!"

Rhys jerked his hands back from where he'd been trying to undo Vaughn's belt buckle as if he'd been burned, lowering his head in submission.

"Just stay here, okay? I promise I'll be back soon."

Rhys looked like he wanted to protest, because goddamnit he needed sex and he needed it now and why was Vaughn leaving him? But his instincts told him to listen, to obey, to submit.

He gave a small nod before shakily rising to stand, allowing Vaughn to lead him back to his bed. He tried to drag Vaughn onto the blankets with him, but he was weak, too weak, and Vaughn untangled himself from Rhys' grasp as the omega made a pitiful whining noise.

"It's gonna be okay," Vaughn said, trying to reassure both Rhys and himself. "Just-- just do what you did the other times this happened."

The look on Rhys' face was that of confusion, and his eyebrows were scrunched as if he was trying to work out some difficult equation. His scent was only thickening, and Vaughn's eyes were watering at the acidity of it.

Reminding himself of his mission, he quickly exited the bedroom before Rhys had another opportunity to jump him. He locked the door from the outside, both for his own protection as well as Rhys' (he didn't trust the omega not to wander when he was this scatter-brained).

It was fine. Everything was going to be fine.

Casting one last worried look towards the door to Rhys' room, he exited the apartment and set off towards Jack's office. 


	15. Worst Dream Team Ever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> vaughn sucks it up and asks jack for help, and an unlikely, highly dysfunctional partnership forms. cue everything turning to shit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was gonna wait a bit longer to post this but oh well, enjoy! also, please consider buying me a coffee (aka helping a poor writer pay for school) at ko-fi.com/dragonbagel

"Jack!"

Handsome Jack looked up from his desk, which he was angrily gesturing at as he paced in front of it yelling into the ECHOcomm pressed against his ear.

"---and if you don't get that new line squared away without any more hints from Tediore, I swear to god I'll airlock you and then feed your corpse to the skags on Pandora while your family--"

"Jack!" Vaughn cut in again, his urgent bravery immediately dissipating as Jack's glare landed on him.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" Jack snarled, the sound of commotion coming from the phone drawing his attention momentarily away from the death glare he was giving Vaughn. "No, asshole, I wasn't talking to you. Now get it in gear before I come down to R&D myself, which, believe me, you really won't like."

Jack groaned as he slammed his ECHOcomm onto the desk in frustration, and it occurred to Vaughn that Jack could probably afford a new phone like that in an instant. Because Jack was rich and powerful and Vaughn was a nerd who'd barged in and upset the head honcho.

"J-Jack," Vaughn stammered, his hands fidgeting with the hem of his shirt.

"That's my name, cupcake," Jack replied, his voice still anger-fueled. "Now you better give me a damn good reason for barging in here like that or your ass will be vented out in space like the rest of them, Rhys' roommate or not."

Shit, Jack was even more furious than Vaughn had expected. But the mention of Rhys' name reminded him of why he'd sprinted all the way across Helios to Jack's office and practically gotten into a fist fight with a secretary trying to act as security.

"I need your help," Vaughn said, impressed at his ability to keep his voice from wavering as he spoke.

"What? You need a foot rub? Want me to give you girl advice?"

Vaughn spluttered for a moment, involuntarily stepping backwards as Jack invaded his space. But he knew he needed to keep it together; his best bro was counting on him.

"There's something going on with Rhys."

Jack's expression softened at that, morphing from unadulterated rage to a concerned yet still murderous look. "The hell is that supposed to mean?"

Vaughn glanced around at the open space they were in, suddenly aware that he'd be spilling some very confidential information.

"Can we talk somewhere a bit more, er, private? It's about, y'know, uh, that stuff."

Jack seemed to get the hint despite Vaughn's mess of speech; if the usually eloquent beta was this flustered, whatever omega-related issue Rhys was having must be legit-- especially if he was asking Jack for help. He knew that Vaughn still thought he was the best caretaker for Rhys, and yeah, the beta was good; there were just a few rather important areas in which Vaughn couldn't help out.

"Don't worry," Jack said, sitting on the edge of his desk and looking expectantly at Vaughn. "All the doors are locked, security cams are off. Nobody can hear us."

Vaughn nodded, relaxing as he came to terms with the fact that Jack wasn't actually going to kill him.

"This is gonna sound weird, but I think Rhys is in heat."

Jack stared at Vaughn with a blank expression, which quickly gave way to worry. "What? How the fuck could he be in heat?"

"I don't know!" Vaughn replied, shaking his head. "It doesn't make any sense."

"No shit," Jack said, rolling his eyes. "It's only been a month, remember? Thought you had to know how to do math to be an accountant."

"I can do math!" Vaughn said indignantly. "And it's-- I don't think it's--"

"Spit it out, muscles," Jack said, cutting off the beta's spluttering.

"I don't think it's being suppressed."

Jack stared at Vaughn, disbelieving.

"He's-- he's not doing well," Vaughn hurried to explain. "He's been throwing up, running a temperature over 105, and nothing he's saying makes any sense. And I found him, um, well..."

Vaughn flushed at the memory, not exactly wanting to tell Jack that his naked boyfriend had tried to coerce him into having sex with him.

"So you're telling me," Jack said, narrowing his eyes, "that Rhys is having a full on heat, and you left him home alone?"

Vaughn began to protest that it wasn't his fault Jack wouldn't give him his cell phone number, but the alpha didn't give him a chance.

"Let's go," he growled, snatching his phone and storming out of the office, Vaughn hurrying behind him. He could feel the anger emanating from the alpha, and Vaughn swallowed thickly.

"Move those stubby legs of yours or give me your apartment key, because I'm not waiting," Jack ordered.

Vaughn picked up his pace as he echoed Jack's growing panic, although he was less successful in masking it in anger.

Jack grunted for Vaughn to open the door when they made it back to the apartment, and Vaughn froze as the key didn't turn. "It's unlocked."

"What?" Jack hissed, pushing past Vaughn and into the apartment. "Where the hell would he have gone?"

Jack began to prowl the apartment, searching under every surface and inside each cupboard as if Rhys would be hiding there. The place smelled intoxicatingly of Rhys, and Jack's instincts were going nuts.

Vaughn, however, remained frozen in place. "He couldn't have left."

"Excuse me?" Jack asked, whipping around in agitation. "He's not here, and he has two legs. Connect the dots, dumbass."

The beta shook his head. "I-- I locked him in his room."

"You what?" Jack roared, turning on Vaughn in an instinctual rage. His thoughts were fueled by Rhys' scent and the feeling of betrayal that someone would abandon the omega while he was in heat.

"I didn't know what to do!" Vaughn said, his panic morphing into defensiveness. "He kept trying to come onto me, and I couldn't exactly take him with me to your office!"

Jack opened and closed his mouth a few times, though no words came out. He was still trying to process what was going on, and his hormones were flooding his rationality. He wanted to find Rhys and keep him safe. He also wanted to kill whoever had tried to put their hands on him-- because that was what had happened, Jack was sure of it. He may have been a bit more paranoid than the average joe (multiple assassination attempts and trust issues do that to a man), but he knew Rhys was too smart to have accidentally instigated this entire mess.

"Let me see his meds," Jack said, already walking in the direction of the bathroom before Vaughn was able to slip in front of him and lead the way.

"Sure, but I already checked; he's been taking them," Vaughn said as he turned on the overhead lights, illuminating the byproducts of his scuffle with Rhys earlier.

Jack narrowed his eyes as he took in the pills scattered across the floor and thermometer carelessly dropped in the corner. He yanked open the medicine cabinet to find the still partially full container of suppressors, ignoring Vaughn's claims that Jack was wasting his time. Rhys was his boyfriend, and he could waste as much time as he damn pleased if it meant he could keep Rhys safe, thank you very much.

"Hey, Jack, so, listen," Vaughn said, his voice grating on Jack's nerves. "I know you probably think you're onto something over there, but can you stop dicking around for a minute and actually help? I'm kind of freaking out here."

"You're freaking out? Shorty, that's my fucking boyfriend that's missing!" Jack shouted, his fists clenching at his sides. "And it's all because your dumb ass decided to leave him alone!"

"Oh, don't act like you don't want me out of the equation!" Vaughn replied, crossing his arms over his chest. "You haven't liked me from the start, you only put up with me because Rhys forces you to!"

"Like you're any better," Jack said, leering. "You can't even pretend to trust me or accept that I can make Rhys happy just as well as you can!"

"It's not just about making him happy, Jack!" Vaughn yelled, eyes watering. "It's about taking care of him and keeping him safe, something you clearly don't know how to do."

Jack opened his mouth to protest, but Vaughn didn't give him the chance.

"He's my best friend, Jack! And he could be-- they could-- don't you know what someone could do to him when he's like this?" Vaughn asked, his voice cracking and becoming softer.

Jack's expression remained stoic, and a tear dripped down Vaughn's cheek.

"I only came to you for help because... well, I saw you bonded with him, so I figured maybe you'd know what to do?" Vaughn said, unsure and obviously bitter. "But clearly I didn't know what I was thinking."

"Vaughn," Jack said, looking at the beta with a restrained aura of seriousness. "Rhys and I didn't bond."

Vaughn's eyes looked like they were about to bug out of his head, and it would've been hilarious if it weren't for the fact that Rhys had been so ashamed of what had happened that he hadn't even told his best friend about it.

"There was an incident a few months ago with another alpha," Jack said, his voice low. "They-- they forced him to bond with them. I thought he told you."

"No, he didn't," Vaughn said, his tone clipped and hurt.

"Don't worry about it, short stuff," Jack said in a sad attempt at sounding comforting. "It'll fade away by the end of the month as long as..."

Jack froze.

"As long as...?" Vaughn prompted, annoyed yet also impressed that Jack possessed the ability to stop himself from speaking.

"The alpha," Jack said, already leaving the bathroom in favor of urgently typing something into his phone. "The one that bonded him. I don't know how, but he's gotta be the one that did this. We researched about how to break the bond, and, see, here's the funny thing; sharing a heat reinforces it, making all our effort waiting it out fucking useless!"

"Who are you texting?" Vaughn asked nervously, his entire body alight in anxiety. If Rhys was submissive to Vaughn, a beta, while in this heat... well, there was no telling how far he'd go to follow an alpha's commands.

"A friend," Jack said shortly, sounding distracted as he combed through the rest of the apartment in search of any evidence.

Vaughn was in the process of calling Jack a smartass when he suddenly took a sharp inhale. "Jack," he said, his voice thick. "Look."

The alpha followed the finger that Vaughn was pointing at Rhys' bed, at first only noticing a drying, tacky mess on the sheets that he would've liked to tease Rhys about had the situation not been so serious.

Then he saw the blood on the pillow.

"Shit," Jack said, hurrying over to the bed. The blood on the fabric was dried, although it didn't appear to be too old. Had Rhys been coherent enough to struggle? Or had the alpha just felt the need to resort to violence for his own selfish interests?

Jack could smell the scent of the unfamiliar alpha underneath that of Rhys, and it was sending angry shudders through his body. It was the same one he'd smelled on Rhys the night when this nightmare had started.

"Do you think he'll be alright?" Vaughn asked nervously, desperate for reassurance.

"We'll find him, muscles," Jack said, dropping the pillow back onto the bed as he reached for his phone once again. "Don't you worry."

Jack hoped that the fake smile on his face wasn't too transparent, because he was inwardly cursing everything around and within himself for allowing this to happen. He should've done a better job protecting Rhys. He should've known it wouldn't be over so easily.

He watched as Vaughn shifted uncomfortably, forcing himself to keep his anxieties from rising to the surface. Every second they stood here was another second Rhys was likely being taken advantage of, and all he could think of was how he hoped he wasn't too late.

Because if he was... well, he didn't know if he'd be able to live with himself.


	16. All Work and No Play Makes Jack a Murderous Boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> vaughn and jack manage to find rhys. it should be a happy reunion. 
> 
> it isn't.
> 
> warning for, like, a shit ton of violence (although y'all knew it was coming)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the amount of time i've spent writing, editing, and rereading this chapter is actually obscene so i hope you all like it. i also had a lot of fun playing around with the concept of bonding.
> 
> ps i dedicated too much thought to referencing a certain cult horror novel in this chapter, let me know if you catch it/are even half as amused by it as i am

Jack got the ping to his ECHOcomm displaying Rhys' previously untraceable location the day after he disappeared. The message showed nothing except for a set of coordinates, but the relief that it sent through the alpha was enormous, especially because it meant that Rhys was at least semi-coherent. A quick search showed that Rhys' message pinpointed a suite at one of Helios' hotels, and a nice one at that. The fact that he wasn't being held in an actual residence confirmed Jack's fear that Rhys had been taken by the alpha that had bonded him, and the thought made him sick to his stomach.   
  
He'd texted Tim a few days prior, ordering him to use all that fancy education that Jack so graciously paid for him to get and find out who the fuck had taken Rhys. Tim had thrown himself into his research, running cross-reference after cross-reference until he'd finally realized he could just check the damn security footage from the hall outside Rhys and Vaughn's apartment. And there, clear as day, was Rhys, looking drunk as hell as he stumbled behind an unfamiliar man dragging him along. From there, it had only taken a few simple searches and a scan of the man's face to identify him as an Atlas employee-- meaning that he was only temporarily on Helios. Meaning that he'd have to be staying in a hotel.   
  
Meaning that it wouldn't be long before he left and took Rhys back to Pandora with him.

"Hurry up!" Jack called, glancing over his shoulder to see Vaughn jogging along behind him. The beta had insisted on coming with to find his best friend, and while Jack wasn't exactly happy about it, he couldn't find it in his heart to refuse. However, that didn't mean he had any qualms about leaving Vaughn behind if he couldn't keep up with Jack's rage-fueled pace.   
  
Jack stopped only when they reached the lobby of the hotel, Vaughn hanging back and taking a moment to catch his breath as Jack rounded on the front desk.   
  
"I need a key to room 237, pronto," he said, leaning onto the granite countertop while the woman behind it stared at him.

"I'm sorry sir, but that room is currently booked by someone else." Her tone was clipped, and she was looking at Jack with disdain-- probably wondering what someone as disheveled-looking and casually dressed as Jack was doing in such a high-class establishment.

"Do you know who I am, pumpkin?" Jack said, his voice dangerously low as he leered at the woman.

"Sir, if you don't step away from the desk, I'm going to have to call security."

Jack slammed his fist onto the countertop, rattling the stack of pamphlets advertising discounted tours of Hyperion's R&D department. "I _own_ this fucking station," he growled, feeling pleased as the woman clearly cowered in fear. "And if you don't give me that key in the next five seconds, you're going to have a one-way ticket out of an airlock."

The lady gulped, pulling at the tight collar of her uniform as if to cool off the panicked heat crawling up her neck. "O-of course, sir, right away."

He watched with a critical glare as she slid a blank room key card into a slot in the computer in front of her, quickly typing in a series of keystrokes before breathlessly handing the key over to him.

"Thanks, cupcake," Jack said, clenching the key in his fist as he gestured to Vaughn. "And that's Handsome goddamn Jack to you."

He almost laughed as he sauntered away, only the scared look in Vaughn's eyes reminding him of the situation at hand and how truly un-funny it was.

"Let's go," he grunted, pushing open the door to the stairwell when they reached it. No way was he about to wait for a slow-ass elevator to arrive when Rhys was so close.

"I can't believe you did that," Vaughn said quietly, the sound of their footsteps echoing.

Jack snorted. "It's called being assertive. You should try it some time."

Vaughn huffed, nearly slamming into Jack as the alpha paused to open the door to the second floor. "The poor woman looked scared for her life."

"Good," Jack said with a smirk, almost hitting Vaughn in the face with the heavy door as he didn't bother waiting to hold it open.

Vaughn bit back a retort, too focused on following Jack in a sprint down the hall. He could smell the faint scent of citrus, and he knew that Jack could too, if the way his fists closed even tighter as he ran was any indication. God, he hoped they weren't too late.

Jack skidded to a stop outside room 237, banging his fist against the door before sliding the electronic key card into the slot. The door clicked open, a green light flashing.

He shoved his way through the entrance with his shoulder, his whole body shuddering as he inhaled Rhys' strong scent. His instincts told him that he needed to have sex with the omega and he needed to do it now, but he pushed those thoughts to the side as he began searching for Rhys.

The room seemed empty, the sheets on the single king bed kicked to the side and a half-empty glass of water resting on the bedside table.

"Rhys?" he called, taking to tearing the room apart when he couldn't immediately spot him. But other than a few suits hanging in the closet and a pair of dress shoes tucked under the couch in the corner of the room, he found nothing. Shit. What if he was too late? What if Rhys had been taken planet-side, what if he'd been sold, what if he'd been touched by that motherfucking--

"Jack!"

The alpha whipped around at the sound of Vaughn's voice, rushing into the bathroom where Vaughn was standing stock-still. The room was huge, a giant tub taking up half the space and a large granite counter with a mirror hanging over it occupying the other. His attention was soon drawn from the scattering of cheap cologne next to the sink to the small whimpers coming from the figure curled up on the floor.

"Rhys!" Jack said, relief clear in his tone. He was here, he was safe. He was also naked, save a pair of stained boxers, which wasn’t doing anything to abate Jack’s anger.

The omega stirred, cracking open his eyes to see Jack kneeling next to him. He inhaled deeply, furrowing his brows before something in his fever-fogged brain clicked.

"Y-you're not--" he gulped, scooting further into the corner on trembling arms. "Not- not him."

Jack forced himself to keep his voice even, even as he could feel his body bubbling with rage. "'Course I'm not, pumpkin."  
  
Rhys' glazed-over eyes slowly roamed over Jack's body. He looked lustful. He also looked terrified-- and the mixture of the two put all of Jack's defensive instincts on edge.

"W-where-- w-why-- s-so hot, f-fuck it's so hot..."

Jack attempted to place a hand on Rhys' forehead, but the omega jerked backwards, his nostrils flaring. "N-no. N-not him."

"The hell are you talking about, cupcake?" Jack said with a frown, the fact that Rhys was very obviously trying to hide from him like a punch to the gut. "We're here to take you home, babe. You called us here, remember?"

If Rhys recalled sending Jack a distress signal with his ECHOeye, he wasn't showing it.

"N-no, you need to-- need to go."

"We're not leaving without you, bro," Vaughn said, finally speaking up. He'd never seen Rhys in such bad shape, and there was no way in hell he wasn't going to do everything in his power to help him.

Rhys squinted, recognizing that words were being spoken but not comprehending them.

"I'm not-- I can't--"

Rhys' stammering was cut short by the clicking sound of a lock and the creak of a door being open.

"Rhys!"

Jack immediately rose to stand as the deep, unfamiliar voice echoed through the room. He wrinkled his nose in disgust as that same nasty smell that he'd encountered on Rhys' bed, body, and, he now realized, on his papers what felt like years ago permeated the air. It was _him_. He shivered with excitement at the thought that finally, finally he'd be able to beat this son of a taint to hell and back.

Rhys, despite how out of it he appeared, also registered the arrival of the alpha, attempting to push himself up to stand and weakly batting at Vaughn's hand as he tried to keep Rhys from rising and, ultimately, probably falling back onto his ass. The beta tensed his grip on Rhys' shoulder as the foreign alpha rounded the corner to loom over the entourage surrounding Rhys.   
  
"Who the hell are you?”

Although the other man was slightly taller than him, Jack squared his shoulders and confidently met his glare. "I should be asking you the same damn thing."

He snorted, although the malice in his glare (and was that hunger?) didn't dissipate. "It doesn't matter who I am. What matters is that you and your friend are touching _my_ omega without permission."

" _Your_ omega?" Jack snarled, leaning further into the man's face. "He's a fucking person-- he doesn't ' _belong_ ' to anyone!"

"Oh really?" The alpha held his hand out and beckoned to Rhys, the smirk never leaving his expression.

Rhys didn't respond, his eyes vacant and breathing shallow as he leaned against the wall.

"Rhys!" he repeated, louder this time, snapping his fingers for emphasis.

The motion seemed to dislodge part of Rhys' mental block, because his flushed face jerked upwards, a bead of sweat dripping down from his forehead and landing on his bare chest.

"Robert," he said softly, rubbing at the back of his neck with his cybernetic hand. More specifically, rubbing at his bonding site, which was throbbing with unattended need. He licked his lips, looking up at the alpha as if awaiting instruction.

"See?" Robert said, slowly removing a hideous knockoff tie from around his neck. " _Mine_."

"What the fuck did you do to him?" Jack growled, attempting to block Rhys from the other alpha's view.

"Me?" Robert asked in feigned innocence, placing his hand over his heart in mock surprise. "I didn't do anything. _He's_ the one that came onto _me_."

"Bullshit," Vaughn piped up, still holding a weak and squirming Rhys down against the floor (which, with how exhausted and feverish Rhys was, wasn't a very difficult task).

"This hot piece of ass followed me all the way back here," he said snidely, the way in which Rhys was scrambling in an attempt to get closer to him doing wonders for his already over-inflated ego.

"That's because you, I don't know, you-- you drugged him!" Vaughn said, stumbling over his words until he landed on an explanation that seemed to vaguely make sense.

Robert scoffed. "I did no such thing."

"Oh, please," Jack said, his eyes narrowing. "There's no way anyone in their right mind would ever want to get with you."

He waved his hand in the alpha's direction, gesturing in disgust as if to prove his point. He wasn’t exactly wrong, considering even “no homo but I still support you bro” Vaughn could sense the alpha’s unattractiveness (yeah, the pitiful combover and bad spray tan were that terrible).

But Robert, that cocky, miserable, asshole, didn’t even let the words make a dent in his pride.

"Rhys is in his right mind, though" Robert said, stepping closer to Rhys despite Jack's warning growl. "In fact, he's right where his stupid little brain wants him to be."  
  
Jack's fists clenched even tighter at his sides. Nothing about this situation was even remotely okay, and as far as he was concerned, every time this dumb alpha opened his mouth, he was further digging his own grave.

"I can't believe you keep him drugged up on those stupid pills," Robert said, pausing every few words to take a deep inhale of citrus-flavored air. "Why not just make everything easier on yourself?"

Vaughn's head was reeling from where he sat in the corner holding down a still-struggling Rhys. "You messed with his suppressors?"

Robert nodded, oblivious in his pride to the way Jack was calculatingly eyeing him up, planning the best course of attack. "I found that neat little supply of suppressors at the hospital after this _asshole_ sent me there," he said, pulling up the side of his shirt to reveal a healing stab wound. "But it's okay, because he already promised to make it up to me. Isn't that right, kid?"

"That's enough!" Jack snarled, grabbing Robert by his shirt collar. "I swear to god if you so much as put a single finger on him without permission--"

"You'll what?" Robert asked, looking far calmer than he should be in the situation at hand. "Oh, wait, I get it now. If you wanted some alone time with him, all you had to do was ask-- and pay the right price, of course."

Jack couldn't take it any longer. He swung all of his weight forward, slamming Robert against the wall. "You fucking piece of shit!" he roared, his fist rearing back and then connecting with the alpha's face.

"The hell are you doing?" Robert spat, blood dribbling from where he'd bitten down too hard on his lip. "I offered to share! I'll even let the tiny guy in on it!"

"What do you think this is?" Jack yelled, pushing the alpha even further against the wall. "Some sort of-- some sort of sex trade?"

Robert kept his voice level, smarmy. "He wants it. In fact, he's been begging for it ever since he got here."

Jack glanced over to Rhys, who was staring wide-eyed at the commotion.

"I've just been waiting for the right moment," Robert said, sounding almost regretful. "But now you've gone and ruined it."

"Oh ho ho, I am going to have so much fun killing you," Jack said, baring his teeth.

If Robert registered the quite obvious threat, he didn't show it. Instead, he glanced over Jack's shoulder at Rhys, who was looking at him desperately.

"Come on,” Robert said. "Let me put him out of his misery."

Jack didn't even think before decking him again, shoving him out of the bathroom and onto the floor at the foot of the bed.

"Don't you ever talk about him like that," he snarled, his fists becoming covered in blood as they continued to connect with Robert's face.

Robert coughed, trying to breathe amidst the blood running across his face from his nose. "I know you can smell him-- smell how bad he wants it."

Jack growled, kneeling to straddle Robert's abdomen and wrapping his hands around the alpha's throat. "Say something like that again and it'll be the last words you ever speak."

Robert scratched at Jack's hands, attempting to pry them off of him. But as Jack only pressed down harder, Robert began to visibly panic. Jack could feel the other alpha's pulse racing beneath his fingers, his anger numbing him to the pain of Robert's nails dragging across his skin. He wanted to kill, maim, and then kill him again for the shit he'd put Rhys through. The notion that Robert hadn't actually forced Rhys to sleep with him yet didn't even register, because honestly it was irrelevant; intent was intent, and oh, Jack intended to do a lot of things to Robert in revenge.

Vaughn and Rhys stared on in shock from where they were still seated in the corner, the violence unfolding before them intense and foreign. Sure, they knew Jack was more than just a casual fighter (if his nearly always bruised knuckles were any indication). But seeing him beat the shit out of a guy in person? That was a whole other beast.

Vaughn had loosened his grip on Rhys as he watched in horror while the mess of blood on Robert's face dripped onto the carpet, other flecks of it landing on Jack's face; and that was all it had taken for the omega to wriggle out of his grasp, tripping over himself in his haste to get to the two alphas.

"Stop!" he shouted, his voice hoarse. He attempted to pull Jack off of Robert, but the alpha easily shunted him off.

"Rhys, what the hell are you doing?" Jack said, his eyes dark with bloodlust.

"D-don't touch him," Rhys said, attempting to keep his voice firm despite how lightheaded he was feeling.

Jack had stopped his assault on Robert's face to look at Rhys in surprise, and the omega took the opportunity to wedge himself between the alphas, curling over Robert protectively.

"Rhys," Jack said, clenching his jaw. "Get off of him."

Rhys shook his head, frantically looking between Robert and Jack. "Don't touch him."

Robert cracked a bloody smile as he looked up at Jack, his teeth stained with red. He could feel Rhys' urge to protect him (as well as his fear) through the bond, and it filled him with a giddy pride that he had him so tightly wrapped around his finger.

"I told you, Jack," Robert said, his voice hoarse from near-strangulation. "He's mine."

"No he fucking _isn’t_ ," Jack growled, trying to pry Rhys off of Robert as gently as possible.

When Rhys turned to bury his face into Robert's chest, his instincts overwhelming him, Jack swore he saw red. The back of the omega's neck was a bright crimson, the usually pale skin completely flushed. The scar that Jack could still remember painstakingly disinfecting was also prominent, although another set of fresher marks was layered on top of it.

Robert had tried to bond Rhys a second time.

Jack didn't know if that was even a thing that could work, but one thing was clear: Robert wasn't getting out of here alive.

"Rhys," Jack tried again, trying to keep his voice low as he watched the omega flinch and curl tighter around Robert. "Rhys, listen to me."

Cautiously, the omega turned to look at him.

"He's trying to take advantage of you, you hear me?" It took every ounce of self-restraint to keep himself from letting his rage show.

"He-- he what?" Rhys said, furrowing his brow.

"He _nothing_ ," Robert cut in, immediately drawing Rhys' attention to him. "I bonded you. You listen to _me_ , not him."

Rhys began to slowly nod before pausing, then shaking his head. "N-no, I d-didn't-- you made me!"

"Excuse me?" Robert said, narrowing his eyes.

"You made me-- made me bond with you!" Rhys replied, anger replacing the arousal at the forefront of his mind. "I didn't want to!"

Robert coughed. "Bullshit."

"You heard him, asshole," Jack said. "He doesn't want you."

"We'll see about that," Robert said, narrowing his eyes.

Before Jack could even react, the alpha had reached his hand around the back of Rhys' neck, digging his nails into the bonding site. _Hard_. Rhys screamed, attempting to pull back, to claw at Robert, to do anything to stop the pain shooting through every fiber of his being.

"You're mine, you hear me?" Robert growled, his grip tightening and pressing even deeper against that sensitive skin.

"Yes!" Rhys cried, the noise strangled. He couldn't think, he couldn't comprehend. All he could focus on was the burning on his neck, the bond that told him he needed to listen and obey and submit at all costs.

"Don't forget your place," he said lowly, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like "stupid fucking omega."

That was all it took before Jack restarted his assault. He shoved Rhys out of the way, grimacing at the way the omega cried out in pain and protest.

"Vaughn," he called, the beta scurrying closer from where he'd been watching in shock. "Hold him back."

Jack wasted no time before slamming his fist back into Robert's stupid face, not even bothering to make sure that Vaughn was heeding his advice.

The beta was, of course. And Rhys was not too happy about it. Everything felt wrong. The back of his neck _burned_ , and an actual train of thought was a thing of the past. All he could feel was pain, both from his own aching body and bloodied neck and from the alpha currently getting the shit beat out of him. The bond was throbbing, raw with an unimaginable torment.

"Please," Rhys gasped, too overwhelmed to even put up much of a fight.

Vaughn didn't relent, not with how Jack was clearly in the murder-zone. He could practically hear the Kill Bill sirens going off.

"Vaughn," Rhys said, suddenly jerking in his arms. He was crying in earnest now, tears trailing down to his chest before pooling on Vaughn's arm.

"It's okay, bro," the beta said in an attempt to be reassuring. "He won't touch you again."

Those were _not_ the words Rhys wanted to hear. That was his alpha there, in pain and needing Rhys' help-- and Rhys couldn't do shit. He was a useless, stupid omega, and he shuddered as a fresh wave of pain from the bond overtook him.

"Stop," he said, trying to turn around to face Vaughn. "Stop him."

Even if Vaughn had heeded Rhys' meek-sounding orders, there was no way in hell Jack was letting up.

"You think you can just manipulate him like that?" Jack said, the question clearly rhetorical, what with the way his hands were once again clenched around the alpha's throat. "Make him do what you want, all because you're a shithead piece of alpha scum?"

Robert's face was turning red from lack of air, and Jack would be damned if he let the alpha die before making him suffer. He released his grip, watching with satisfaction as Robert spluttered for air.

"What don't you get?" Robert asked weakly. "He's made to submit. He _wants_ to."

"Like hell he does!" Jack shouted, rising to stand before kicking his boot-clad foot into Robert's side.

"I don't know why-- hmmph-- Hyperion even hires omegas," Robert said, his words accentuated by groans every time Jack's foot crashed into him. "So-- urgh-- easy to make them do what you-- fuck!-- what you want."

Kicking him wasn't enough, Jack decided. Stomping on his ribs was a much better option.

"Is that why-- hmmph-- you keep him around?" If Robert realized that his stupid elitist speech was what was currently getting his ribs cracked, he didn't show it. "A little corporate incentive?"

Jack snarled as the meaning of Robert's words sunk in: He thought that Rhys worked at Hyperion to be fucked.

Had Rhys been in his right mind, he would have been most definitely sharing in Jack's rage. He’d gotten this far on pure merit, and he’d be damned if someone thought otherwise. Robert was just another high-and-mighty better-than-you alpha, and it was for this exact reason that Rhys kept his endotype hidden.

Of course, this sort of logic was incomprehensible to Rhys in his current state. His entire existence consisted of nothing but pain, fear, and even more pain. The feeling of it was blinding, overpowering. He couldn’t remember ever feeling anything this intense. He didn’t realize he was shaking until Vaughn commented on it, and even then it was out of his control. Too many things were happening at once, and he was too far out of it to sort through them. The only action he seemed to be capable of (other than shivering in a feverish sweat) was to mutter a repeated mantra of “stop stop stop stop stop.”

If Vaughn was being honest, the whole situation was scaring the shit out of him. He didn’t know which was worse: Jack’s mission to beat Robert to a pulp or the way Rhys was freaking out in his grasp. Actually, he definitely knew which was worse-- Rhys’ agony was so fierce it felt contagious. The omega kept shifting between crying, tugging against Vaughn’s grip, and pressing the palm of his hand against the back of his neck.

No, Vaugh realized-- against his bonding site.

“Jack!” he shouted, cringing as Rhys cried out in tandem with a particularly nasty kick to Robert’s ribs. Vaughn was by no means an expert on bonding, but it was clear that all of Robert’s pain was also being felt by Rhys.

“Jack, you’re hurting him!” he shouted, panic rising in his throat as Rhys’ flailing weakened.

But Jack was too far in the murder zone to even hear him. Robert had long gone limp, but the alpha wouldn’t be finished with him until he’d gotten what he deserved for the shit he’d put Rhys through. For bonding him, taking him, mentally torturing him, leaving him alone on the fucking bathroom floor, bonding him _again_ \-- they were about to be there all night at this rate.

Rhys was curled in on himself, one hand still clutching at his neck and the other scrunching his sweat-shorts. The pain didn’t even feel like a mental phenomenon any longer, and if his eyes weren’t tightly closed, he swore he’d be able to see bruises forming on his chest. He was biting his lip hard enough to draw blood, and the anguished noises he was making pushed Vaughn over the edge.

The beta untangled himself from Rhys, who’d stopped struggling completely now, and lunged on top of Jack. He yanked on the alpha’s shoulders, grunting as Jack elbowed him in the chest. It wasn’t his brightest decision, but he couldn’t think of any other way to get Jack to listen to him.

“Get off of him!” Vaughn yelled, trying to drag him off of Robert. The overwhelming scents and the way Rhys’ entire body was shuddering fueled a bravery that he didn’t previously know he possessed.

“Why?” Jack growled, angry at being interrupted. “This piece of shit is nothing but--”

“I don’t care about him!” Vaughn said, cutting him off. “You’re hurting Rhys, you asshole!”

Jack scoffed, ready to restart his assault on Robert’s face, before he paused, his nostrils flaring.

“Please, Jack,” Vaughn pleaded, knowing that even all the time he spent in the gym wouldn’t give him the strength to beat the alpha in a fight. “You’re practically killing him!”

Beneath the strange olfactory mixture of citrus, blood, and musk was another scent, one that Jack cursed himself for not previously noticing: Fear. It was unadulterated terror and anguish, and it sent shivers down Jack’s spine. Was it _his_ fault that Rhys was feeling this way?

Jack slowly pushed himself up to stand, wiping his bloodied knuckles on his jacket and sucking on a patch of split skin. He was still high on adrenaline, and his entire body felt tingly as he cautiously stepped closer to Rhys. The omega was curled in on himself, having squeezed his body as far into the corner as possible. His hiding was instinctual, and it only served to bolster Jack’s anger.

Rhys’ flesh hand was still tightly clamped against the back of his neck, his bonding site stinging like alcohol in an open wound. He was letting out small whimpers, although he couldn’t hear them over the ringing in his ears. He was nothing more than a mess of pain and fear and instincts, and he hated feeling so out of control.

“What’s wrong with him?” Jack asked, turning to see Vaughn fixing him with a glare.

“They’re _bonded_ , Jack,” he spat, kneeling at his friend’s side and attempting to get his hand off of his neck and inspect his bonding site. “If you thought about anyone other than yourself you’d know that.”

“I don’t--” Jack’s speech faltered, a lump forming in his throat as Vaughn succeeded in coaxing Rhys into exposing his neck.

The omega’s hand came away stained red.

“Shit,” Vaughn said, the sight of blood dizzying.

Rhys bit his lip, bringing his knees up to his chest and wrapping his arms around himself. He remained silent, but his jaw was clearly trembling.

“Should we get him to a hospital?” Vaughn asked, frowning as Jack quickly shook his head.

“He wouldn’t want anyone to know. Plus, I don’t trust that more dumbass alphas won’t try to come for him.”

Rhys still smelled deliciously good, and Jack was torn between wanting to comfort him and wanting to fuck him into next week.

“Fine,” Vaughn said reluctantly, shifting Rhys so that his head rested in the beta’s lap. “Then I’m taking him home.”

Jack nodded, moving to stand up and lead the way before Vaughn stopped him. “You’re not coming with.”

“The hell I’m not!” Jack said, his voice raised.

Vaughn glared at him. “You did this to him.”

Jack tried to reply but faltered, guilt overtaking him. “I didn’t mean to.”

“I don’t care!” Vaughn yelled, cringing as his angry tone caused Rhys to curl even tighter into himself. He quickly apologized to his bro, trying to smooth his hair back and feeling the warmth radiating from his skin.

“But I-- he needs me!” Jack protested.

Vaughn didn’t buy it. “What he needs is for you to leave and take this asshole with you.”

The alpha glanced back over at Robert, who was unfortunately still alive, albeit unconscious. He reached out to try to soothe Rhys (he was still his boyfriend goddamnit), but the omega flinched and cried out in Vaughn’s arms.

“Get out of here,” Vaughn growled. “Now.”

Jack swallowed thickly, backing away from Rhys’ shuddering form. No part of him wanted to leave, but he knew rationally that Rhys was too far gone to register anything other than the fact that an unfamiliar alpha was near him.

 _Unfamiliar_. The very notion of the word caused bile to rise in his throat. He should be taking care of him, helping him through his heat like his body so desperately wanted to. It was the hormones talking, he reminded himself. Unfortunately, that didn’t make him feel any better.

“You’ll take care of him, right?” Jack asked, moving to pick up Robert from the bloody mess on the floor.

“What else would I do?” Vaughn snapped.

To that Jack had no response, so instead he lifted Robert off the ground and slung him over his shoulder. The still unconscious alpha groaned, and Rhys’ head perked up at the sound.

“No.”

Jack stole a glance over his shoulder to see Rhys staring at him.

“No,” the omega repeated, registering only the fact that his alpha was leaving him. “No, please.”

Jack grimaced, looking to Vaughn for guidance only to see the beta shooing him away. Begrudgingly, he readjusted his grip on Robert before finally leaving the room, the sound of Rhys’ pleading cries echoing behind him before the door slammed shut. 


	17. In Sickness and In Health

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> vaughn takes care of a mentally distraught rhys. mega angst ensues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're in the home stretch now, kiddos! thanks for sticking with me so far, your comments/support means a lot to me. if you've been enjoying, please consider supporting me on ko-fi.com/dragonbagel

Rhys hadn’t moved or spoken after his initial fit when the alphas had vacated the room, his silence somehow even more terrifying to Vaughn than his outbreak. He’d tried to lift the omega up onto the bed so he’d at least be more comfortable, but Rhys remained a deadweight in his arms. Goddamnit, how did someone so thin still manage to be so heavy?

When Vaughn finally managed to move Rhys, drawing on his bench press skills from the gym yet grunting with the exertion nonetheless, the omega immediately curled back into a fetal position once on the bed, his breathing heavy and his hand once again clutching his bonding site.

“Fuck,” Vaughn said to nobody in particular. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

Rhys didn’t even flinch when Vaughn lightly pressed his hand against his forehead in an attempt to gauge how bad his fever was. And damn, was it bad.

The beta hurried into the bathroom to wet a washcloth with cold water, his stomach churning when he saw that Rhys had thrown up on the tiles in the corner at some point before they’d arrived. Had that dumbass alpha actually tried to feed him normal food? Vaughn scowled at the notion.

Rhys hadn’t moved since Vaughn had left, his gaze vacant as he stared at the tacky painting of Helios hanging on the wall. The beta gently dabbed at Rhys’ face with the towel, not knowing what else to do. Should he try to get Rhys to take some suppressors? Would that even do anything to help when he was already this far gone? Rhys probably wouldn’t be able to keep them down anyways.

“Bro,” he said softly, not sure if Rhys could actually hear him. “We’ve gotta get you home.”

The omega didn’t respond.

“I need you to talk to me, Rhys.” Vaughn couldn’t let him slip away, not now. “You’ve gotta help me out here.”

Rhys remained silent.

* * *

Getting Rhys back to the apartment was nothing short of an exhausting ordeal. He’d had to force Rhys into the shower before they’d left the room in order to lessen his scent (Vaughn wasn’t in the mood to fend off a crowd of horny alphas), and Rhys hadn’t spoken the entire time, although he eventually let his friend lead him into the bathroom. He hadn’t taken his boxers off, and Vaughn didn’t bother-- although honestly, seeing his bro naked was the least of his worries at that point.

Once he’d thoroughly scrubbed Rhys down with the hotel’s scented soap (which was thankfully not citrus) and helped him dry off, he realized Rhys couldn’t exactly be seen walking half-naked through the space station. The only clothes in the room belonged to the alpha-- because he was going to get Rhys naked and keep him like that and take advantage of him and-- Vaughn sighed, shaking his head in an attempt to clear it. There was no use thinking about that now; Rhys needed him.

The alpha had been roughly the same height as Rhys, although his frame was a bit stockier. The clothes fit Rhys fairly well, however, and the omega’s face seemed to light up as he put them on. He found himself burrowing into Robert’s casual sweater, ensconcing himself in the warmth.

And in the scent, Vaughn realized.

While the very thought of Rhys still craving that douchebag reignited his anger, the way Rhys was mindlessly rubbing his face against the soft material at least seemed to calm the omega down somewhat.

“Come on,” Vaughn said, tugging at the sleeve.

Rhys looked at Vaughn, pupils dilated yet not as lust-filled as they’d appeared before. Was that a good sign? The beta honestly had no idea.

Vaughn pulled at him again, this time causing Rhys to stumble forward. “Let’s go,” he said, cringing at the way the firmness of his order had Rhys immediately scurrying behind him. It made him feel like he was somehow taking advantage of him, forcing Rhys to do something that the omega lacked the ability to refuse.

Rhys quietly followed Vaughn out of the room, sparing one backwards glance before deciding that the alpha’s scent clinging to his shirt was enough for him to leave the rest of the pheromone-filled air behind.

If the various people they passed on their way back to the residential sector registered that something was wrong with Rhys, they didn’t show it. Vaughn figured they probably just thought Rhys was drunk, which was perfectly fine with him. _Almost there,_ he reassured himself. _We’re almost there._

The omega had practically collapsed multiple times along the way, and he slid down onto the floor when Vaughn finally let go of him to open the door. He barely registered the fact that Vaughn was trying to pull him inside, the warm, safe scent surrounding him and the coolness of the no doubt germ-infested wall he was resting his cheek on soothing him into near unconsciousness.

“Come on,” Vaughn huffed, finally managing to get the omega inside despite the way his body had gone limp. He dragged Rhys into his bedroom, leaving Rhys to lean against the mattress as he quickly changed the sheets. He helped Rhys into bed, attempting to strip the alpha’s clothes off of him so that he wouldn’t overheat in his sleep. He managed to get the pants off without a fuss, although Rhys whined and batted at Vaughn when he tried to remove the sweater.

“Fine,” Vaughn said. “You can keep it.”

Rhys made a soft, happy noise as he buried his face in the sweater, and it wasn’t long after his head hit the pillow that he began to snore.

Vaughn sighed; it was going to be a long week.

* * *

It was a few hours later that there was a knock on the door. Vaughn scowled as he saw Jack through the peephole, and begrudgingly opened the door; he knew Jack wasn’t going to leave until Vaughn acknowledged him, and he wasn’t about to have his loud-ass knocking wake Rhys up.

“What do you want?” Vaughn snapped, opening the door a crack yet making no move to let the alpha inside.

“How is he?” the alpha asked, attempting to look over Vaughn’s shoulder and into the apartment.

“He’s fine,” Vaughn said shortly. “And I’m fine too, thanks for asking.”

If Jack registered Vaughn’s bitter sarcasm, he didn’t show it. “Let me see him.”

Vaughn stood his ground in the doorway. “He’s sleeping.”

The alpha pursed his lips, debating if he actually believed him and, if not, what the best way to get around him and into the apartment would be.

“Seriously,” Vaughn said. “You shouldn’t be here. I’ll call you when he wakes up, but you need to go now.”

Jack clenched his fist at his side, his instincts going nuts with territorial rage.

“Who the hell do you think you are, huh?” he hissed. “What makes you think you have any claim over him? He’s _my_ boyfriend and _my_ omega-- you have no right!”

“Ha, that’s funny,” Vaughn chuckled humorlessly. “That’s exactly what Robert said.”

He slammed the door in Jack’s face.

* * *

Vaughn peeked into Rhys’ room a few hours later to find him buried beneath the blankets, the sweater pulled over his narrow shoulders so that it completely surrounded his face. He was quietly whining to nobody in particular, and Vaughn carefully moved the sweater to reveal Rhys’ face.

He gulped when he was that Rhys was crying, tears sliding down his reddened skin.

“Vaughn?” he croaked.

The beta forced a smile. “Yeah bro, it’s me.”

“W-where am I?”

“You’re in your room. See, here’s all your creepy Handsome Jack posters.”

Rhys laughed weakly at that, the sound sparking a bit of hope in Vaughn that maybe, just maybe, things would be alright.

“I don’t… feel right. And ‘m thirsty.”

Robert probably hadn’t kept him properly hydrated, which could be devastating. Luckily, Vaughn had already filled a cup of water, which was now resting on the bedside table. He gestured to it, and Rhys weakly raised the glass to his lips as Vaughn spoke again.

“That’s because you’re in heat, dude.” He cracked his knuckles as he talked. “A real one.”

Rhys furrowed his brow, nearly doing a spit-take. “No, that’s-- that’s impossible!”

“Do you remember anything?” Vaughn asked, taking advantage of this moment of coherency.

“I remember… a hotel?” Rhys said unsurely. “And,” he sucked in a breath. “And the alpha.”

“Anything else?” Vaughn prompted.

“There was a fight, I think. And he-- he bit me again. And told me I was his. And I am his, right? Vaughn, Vaughn where is he? Why isn’t he here? Where-- where am I? What’s going on, bro help me, help me please, I--”

His confused stammers broke off as he bit his lip, frowning. He scrunched his eyes shut, although a stray tear managed to leak out.

So much for getting answers out of him. “It’s gonna be okay, Rhys.”

But Rhys didn’t hear him, once again dragged under by the fever raging through his body. His grip loosened on the glass, and Vaughn managed to grab it just before the water spilled all over the bedsheets.

* * *

That night was probably the most grueling one of Vaughn’s entire life; not even the Mountain Dew-fueled all-nighters he’d pulled before final exams during his not too long ago college years could compete. It was nothing like the normal heats Vaughn had supported him through, and it barely resembled the intense lust Rhys had been consumed by when he’d last seen him just one day prior.

After his initial bout of questioning, Rhys had turned away, refusing to talk to Vaughn. He’d curled impossibly tightly in on himself underneath the pile of blankets he was unwilling to relinquish despite Vaughn’s worry for his temperature. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. The only thing that mattered was that Robert wasn’t here and he was hurt and he needed Rhys and oh god did Rhys need him too. The pain and longing overpowered any sexual need, and it left Rhys sweaty, shaking, and horribly alone.

Vaughn had found Rhys more than once resting on his side on the bathroom floor, one time almost stepping on him. He knew that Rhys was tired, but dammit couldn’t he at least drag himself back to bed after taking a piss? However, when it quickly became a pattern, Vaughn realized there must be something else going on.

“Hey. Hey, Rhys, you there bro?”

Rhys glanced up from where he was lying tangled on the floor in a combination of blankets, towels, and Robert’s _stupid fucking sweater._ “Hmm?”

Vaughn sighed; it was the third time he’d found the omega there in the past hour, and it was driving him insane. At least this time it seemed like maybe Rhys could give him some answers rather than just incoherently push against Vaughn’s efforts to carry him back to his actual bed.

“Dude, why are you on the floor?” Vaughn asked, exhaustion clear in his voice.

“I’m…” Rhys trailed off, looking over his body as if he wasn’t so sure why he was there himself. “He… said to?”

Rhys’ response was more of a question than anything, which Vaughn hoped was an indication that this mess of a heat fever would be clearing up soon.

“Who?” Vaughn prompted.

“He said,” Rhys replied, working to push himself up onto hands and knees with no shortage of effort. “He said go on the floor so I didn’t… so I didn’t…”

Rhys had made it nearly upright, although he was still kneeling. “Can’t have you… throwing up on the bed,” he said slowly, repeating the words still floating around in his soupy consciousness. Then he laughed, a detached, skin-prickling chuckle that conveyed anything but humor with his next words: “S-stupid omega b-bitch.”

Vaughn’s fists clenched at the words, especially at the way they spilled out of Rhys’ mouth like some twisted, blackish sludge. In Vaughn’s professional opinion, nobody should be saying that shit about any sort of endotype, least of all Rhys.

“Rhys. Rhys, hey, listen to me!”

Rhys leaned back in an attempt to dodge Vaughn’s lunge for his flesh hand, with which he was subconsciously raking his nails against his bonding site. But he was weak, and while Vaughn was the very embodiment of dead on his feet, he was running on pure adrenalin and protective instincts. He caught Rhys’s hand, grasping his wrist and holding it still. Rhys’ eyes met his, and Vaughn tried his best to convey the sincerity of his next words.

“He’s wrong, okay? You’re not stupid, bro, and we both know it.”

Vaughn wasn’t sure if the tilt of Rhys’ head meant he understood or was simply spacing out again, but he continued nonetheless.

“He just-- none of this is your fault. Please, please remember that, man. And yeah, you’re scaring the shit out of me,” Vaughn said with a nervous sigh. “But I’m not going anywhere. Best bros for life, remember?”

Rhys’ gaze was unwavering as Vaughn spoke, and it slowly trailed down as the beta released his grip and held his hand out for a tentative fist bump. He stared at Vaughn’s hand for a moment, like he didn’t quite know what it meant but felt an itching in his mind that he definitely should.

Eventually, Rhys cracked a shaky smile and weakly pressed his fist against Vaughn’s. “B-best bros f-for life.”

* * *

Rhys was asleep again after their moment in the bathroom, having finally allowed Vaughn to lead him back to bed rather than staying on the nasty floor. It wasn’t much, but Vaughn still considered it progress. He figured now was as good of a time as any to call Jack, although he did it more out of necessity then a desire to do anything even remotely nice for the alpha. He didn’t need Jack at the apartment fucking everything up yet again, especially now that Rhys seemed to be doing a bit better.

The alpha answered on the first ring, which was desperate even by Vaughn’s standards. The video call feature was enabled, so the beta was greeted with a too-close image of Jack’s clenched jaw, which was speckled with blood and covered by bits of stubble poking out from beneath his crooked mask.

“Uh… Jack?” Vaughn said cautiously, pushing his glasses further up on his nose.

“Huh?” Jack said, jerking back so that his whole face was in view before cracking a small smile. “Sorry Muscles, I know you probably want to see all of this handsome mug.”

Vaughn rolled his eyes. “Cut the shit. I’m not in the mood.”

“Fine,” Jack snapped, perfectly content to forego any hollow attempts at chivalry. “Tell me how he is.”

The underlying command in Jack’s words set Vaughn on edge, and he didn’t stop his exhausted features from morphing into a glare. “He’s great! Fucking skipping through fields of flowers!” Vaughn spat bitterly. “What do you want me to say?”

Jack’s face was now hardened to match Vaughn’s. “I don’t know, maybe that you worked your fucking magic and fixed him? Did whatever it was that I’m apparently not good enough to do?”

“What you’re not good enough to do?” Vaughn repeated in frustrated disbelief. “What you’re not good enough to do is keep Rhys alive!”

There was a crashing sound on the other end of the line in what Vaughn assumed to be the collateral damage smashed in Jack’s anger.

“Let me talk to him,” Jack said. “And don’t give me that crap about him being asleep again,” he added before Vaughn could refuse.

The beta was about to tell Jack to fuck off and end the call before none other than Rhys came stumbling into the room, the blanket draped across his shoulders trailing behind him like a cape. Jack gave Vaughn an “I told you so” smirk before calling out to Rhys.

The omega gave the phone a confused glance, not totally sure what was going on but still trying to process through the fog in his brain.

“Jack?” he asked, taking an unsure step closer to the ECHOcomm.

“In the flesh,” Jack said with a self-assured grin. “Well, sort of.”

Rhys blinked, his lips slowly turning into a frown. “Where-- where is he?”

He didn’t need to say Robert’s name for both Vaughn and Jack to know who he was talking about. That much was clear by the way a tense silence immediately fell over the group.

“I just-- I want to know,” Rhys said, the snail’s pace at which he was speaking serving as a further testament to his difficulty staying focused.

Jack’s eyes flicked over to Vaughn as he was unable to stop himself from asking for a second opinion. The beta shrugged, so Jack took that as the go-ahead.

“He’s here. I’ve got Timmy watching over him.”

Rhys nodded, seemingly deeming that to be an acceptable answer. “I want to see him-- not now,” he quickly amended, seeing the dumbfounded looks on everyone’s faces. “Just once- once this is done.”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea…” Jack said, biting his lip.

“It’s not up to you,” Rhys replied with a huff.

“I know that, it’s just--”

“It’s not a discussion,” Rhys interrupted. “It’s my choice, and I-- whoa, I just got super dizzy all of a sudden, I think I’m gonna--”

The omega began to sway on his feet, pressing a hand against his forehead. Vaughn managed to catch him before he completely collapsed, Rhys stumbling as he tried to regain his balance. He didn’t protest as Vaughn led him to a chair, and complied when he a glass of water was placed in front of him with the order to “drink that shit bro you’re dehydrated.”

Jack was massaging his temples as he looked on, Rhys’ fever undeniably worrying him. Rhys turned back to the phone once he’d drained the cup, unfocused gaze trained on Jack.

“You alright there, cupcake?” the alpha asked, offering Rhys a small smile.

Rhys didn’t answer, just slowly blinked.

“Rhysie?” Jack said, panic obvious.

“Oh yeah, he does that a lot,” Vaughn said, gently pressing the back of his hand to Rhys’ forehead before recoiling at the high temperature. “Listen, I’ve gotta go get him cooled off…”

“Please,” Jack said as Vaughn reached to end the call, his voice so quiet that Vaughn wasn’t sure if he’d imagined it at first. “Please, I-- I need to make sure he’s okay.”

“He is,” Vaughn said, trying and failing to sound confident in his answer.

The skeptical look in Jack’s eyes showed that he believed anything but that, although he didn’t argue. “Please, can I come over? I’ll leave if he wants me to, I promise.”

Jack didn’t know how to communicate to Vaughn that his need to see Rhys, to protect him and ensure his safety, went beyond just their relationship. It was something deep within him, an insatiable, instinctual urge that he simply couldn’t ignore.

For a moment, Vaughn found himself actually considering Jack’s plea. Maybe it was the fifty unfinished errands Vaughn needed to run, or maybe it was the fact that Jack, Handsome _fucking_ Jack, was begging him for something (okay, it was definitely the latter).

But then he looked over and saw Rhys, who was staring off into space with an unnaturally tense expression. Screw shopping and work and the ten missed calls from Leia clogging up his phone; his bro needed him, and he wasn’t going to leave him-- especially not with Jack, who’d been the catalyst of said neediness.

“Sorry, Jack,” Vaughn said as firmly as he could muster. “But the answer’s no.”

The pained look on Jack’s face almost made him reconsider, feeling a shred of guilt for keeping Jack from his boyfriend.

Vaughn quickly ended the call before he could make any dumb decisions that he’d probably end up regretting. 


	18. Fucked With a Capital "F"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack is forced to deal with the aftermath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> only a few more chapters left! hope y'all are ready!

“Fuck!” Jack shouted as the phone call disconnected.

That little shit had hung up on him, and had even had the audacity to freaking _apologize_ to him as if that would soften the blow. The blow, by the way, was the fact that his boyfriend was in lockdown and he had no way of checking on him. Or taking care of him. Or doing anything other than twiddling his _fucking thumbs_ like an incapable loser.

He couldn’t even take his all-consuming anger out on that piece of shit Robert since it would likely hurt Rhys again; that, and the fact that Tim had locked the alpha up at his own place so that Jack “couldn’t do anything stupid.” The precaution was completely unnecessary, in Jack’s opinion, although what he wouldn’t give to have his hands wrapped around that douchebag’s throat again…

Okay, maybe it wasn’t totally unreasonable. That didn’t mean he had to be happy about it, though. He felt restless as he paced through his penthouse, electing to blame his twitchiness on his frustration rather his guilt, lest he add any more shame to the heaviness in his chest. How was he supposed to know that he was hurting Rhys? It wasn’t like there was some guide book for all of this shit. He was just trying to protect his boyfriend.

_If you thought about anyone other than yourself you’d know that._

He couldn’t stop himself from shuddering as Vaughn’s words replayed in his head. _No_ , he chided himself. _This isn’t my fault._

But when he thought about the way Rhys had looked at him back in that nightmarish hotel room, the pained, terrified glint in his eyes, he began to think that maybe that tiny voice was wrong.

* * *

Jack didn’t hear from Vaughn for another three days. He didn’t know why he expected to, considering the less-than-pleasant terms they’d last spoken on; maybe it was the anxiety clawing through his chest and threatening to chew through him from the inside out.

The text from Vaughn only consisted of four words, yet still managed to send a jolt of hope through the constant, inescapable fog that had been surrounding Jack everywhere he went for the past week.

_Heat’s over. He’s fine._

The alpha responded with thanks just moments after, a gesture which, while a bit undermining to his whole “total badass” image, didn’t even faze him in his newfound happiness. He even decided not to shoot the dumbass researcher who showed up in his office moments later with overdue paperwork (a sad attempt to make up for the insane amount of air-lockings that had taken place while Jack had been stuck worrying about Rhys).

He’d tried to convince Tim to go to work in his place multiple times (wasn’t that the entire point of having a body double?) but had been shot down. He was pretty sure Tim was plotting with Vaughn behind his back, considering both of them seemed to hate him at this point. But you know what? Screw them. Rhys was back to himself now, so Vaughn had no reason to play babysitter/bodyguard anymore.

Smirking, he pulled up Rhys’ contact on his phone and hit call. He listened to the phone connection ring for a few moments before Rhys picked up.

“Hello?”

Rhys sounded exhausted, but at least he was talking with coherency. At least he’d answered him.

“Rhysie!” Jack said, grinning.

The alpha wished that he could see Rhys’ face, but the video feature of the call was disabled. Jack wasn’t about to push it, though. “How’re ya feelin, cupcake?”

“Like shit,” Rhys replied, coughing.

Jack frowned in concern. “I tried to come see you earlier.”

“Yeah, Vaughn mentioned that.”

“I’m sorry, pumpkin, but Muscles wouldn’t let me in and--”

“It’s okay,” Rhys interrupted. “It was probably… better that way.”

The omega seemed to sense Jack’s hurt, because he quickly elaborated. “I could barely think when it was bad. I wouldn’t- well, I don’t know if I would've recognized you, and that could have been, uh, not good.”

Jack nodded, although he couldn’t prevent more guilt from washing over him. “Listen, babe, I’m not exactly great at this shit, but I’m-- I’m sorry, cupcake.”

Rhys was quiet for a moment. “It’s not your fault.”

“Your friend seems to think it is,” Jack said dryly.

“Yeah, well, you know; it’s Vaughn.” Rhys chuckled, but it sounded too hollow for Jack’s comfort.

“Still don’t know how you manage to live with him,” Jack joked, trying to lighten the mood.

“He’s my bro,” Rhys said, and Jack could hear the rustle of fabric as the omega shrugged. “Listen, I’ve gotta go.”

“Already?” Jack asked, realizing how much that made him sound like a desperate teenager.

“I’m tired, Jack,” Rhys said simply.

“Yeah, yeah,” the alpha replied, waving him off in a last-ditch effort to actually act like an adult. “Get some sleep, kiddo.”

Rhys yawned. “Talk to you later, Jack.”

Jack continued to stare at the phone long after the call ended.

* * *

Apparently the “later” part of Rhys’ statement had no expiration date, because he hadn’t responded to any of Jack’s calls for three days now. He would’ve been worried that Rhys had somehow airlocked himself had it not been for the constant influx of weapon prototypes gracing Jack’s desk with the omega’s signature on them.

“Is he ignoring me? Is that what’s going on?”

“Jack, I’m not a therapist,” Tim replied, rolling his eyes. “Is this seriously what you called me into your office for?”

“So what if it is?” Jack snapped, his patience all but gone.

“I have work too, in case you didn’t notice,” Tim said dismissively.

“Did you forget who your boss is, cupcake?” Jack asked, eyes narrowed.

“Nope,” Tim said, popping the ‘p’. “But we have a new sniper rifle shipment going out in a few days I need to oversee, and I don’t think I’m being paid to offer relationship advice.”

“Fine, whatever,” Jack said with a scowl. “Just get out of here.”

Tim frowned, feeling a bit guilty for blowing Jack up over something he was clearly stressed out about. “Listen, just give Rhys some space. It’s gonna take him a while to get over what, erm… what happened.”

Jack knew that Tim was right, but those words were the very opposite of what the alpha wanted to hear. He waved Tim out without another glance, returning to his new favorite hobby of glaring at his phone and waiting for Rhys’ name to pop up on the screen.

But the call never came.

* * *

Jack didn’t know what he expected to see when he opened the door to his apartment at nearly one in the morning, but it certainly wasn’t this.

Rhys, whom he’d barely spoken to in weeks, was standing before him with a practically maniacal grin on his face. Jack took a startled step back as he realized Rhys’ features were speckled with blood, and his grey suit had sizeable stains of scarlet on it as well.

“Well? Are you gonna let me in, or are you just gonna stand there and stare at me?”

“I, uh, sure,” Jack said, his eyes never leaving Rhys as he moved aside.

“Thanks, handsome,” Rhys said with a wink, pausing to appreciatively smack Jack’s ass before striding into the kitchen.

“Um, Rhysie?” Jack asked tentatively. “What the hell are you doing?”

The omega was looking through Jack’s obscenely large liquor cabinet, his eyes lighting up as he pulled out a bottle of “above-your-pay-grade” champagne and two thin glasses.

“I,” he said, setting the glasses down and popping the cork off the bottle, “am making a toast.”

Some bubbles and froth trailed from the bottle onto the tiled floor, but Rhys ignored them, continuing to look smug as hell as he filled each glass to the brim.

“You know that stuff’s expensive, kitten.”

“Yup,” Rhys said, licking a bit of spilled champagne off of his finger. The movement was mesmerizing, and Jack definitely would’ve been popping a massive boner if he wasn’t so concerned about Rhys’ strange demeanour.

“This one’s for you, handsome,” Rhys said as he handed Jack one of the glasses, which the alpha cautiously took.

“You sure you’re okay, cupcake?” Jack asked, a bit of his overfilled drink sloshing over the side.

“I’m better than okay,” Rhys replied, his smile huge.

Jack was about to question the omega’s sobriety when Rhys raised his glass in order to make his toast. “To me,” he said, his expression smug. “And to Robert, the stupid motherfucker, may he rest in pieces.”

“Christ, Rhysie, what’d you do?”

Rhys didn’t respond, instead clinking his glass against Jack’s before downing his drink in one go. Jack remained frozen in place, his eyes never leaving Rhys’. Only once the omega was finished swallowing did he answer Jack’s question.

“I stabbed him again,” Rhys said, grinning as Jack’s mouth fell open. “But this time, I did it right.”


	19. Sayonara, Sucker!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rhys and Robert have a nice little chat. And by nice, I mean Rhys beating the shit out of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> angsty rhys becomes badass rhys. this chapter features explicit content in the end, it's not really relevant to the plot so feel free to skip it if it make you uncomfortable.

Rhys couldn’t remember what had happened during the worst of it. That was what scared him the most: those amnesiac moments where he could recall nothing, nothing but a hazy blur of twisting thoughts and overpowering, unidentifiable emotions. Even now, back at his desk job and swamped in blissfully mind-numbing reports, his mind kept wandering back those mental blind spots. The distracting nature of work had been the convincing factor in his argument to get out of the house once his heat had passed, although Vaughn was still texting him every five minutes to check in and remind him to keep hydrating.

Yeah, there was no way he was going to stay trapped at home with his bro-turned-helicopter mom riding his ass on everything. Besides, the apartment wasn’t exactly a fun place for Rhys to be at in any capacity. It reminded the omega of him. Robert. The alpha. The stupid motherfucker that ruined his life.

He knew from Vaughn that his suppressors had been messed with, as that particular piece of information had been one of the many that didn’t actually sink into his brain. What he _did_ remember was… less than pleasant.

He could still feel the tingling in his body as Robert had found him in the apartment, the complete need that had overtaken him at the mere sight of the alpha. If he thought hard enough about it, he even heard his own pathetic voice ringing in his ears, his disregarded pleas for Robert to grant him the relief he so badly craved. He shuddered as he recalled what happened next: the second bonding, which left him screaming in either pain or pleasure (he honesty couldn’t tell). After that, his mind had gone blank for a while. He hated to admit it, but it was probably better that way.

Vaughn had mentioned quite a few times how thankful he was that Rhys had sent out the distress call, although the memory of the occurrence itself didn’t resurface until much later. He saw the outgoing signal from his cybernetics, stamped with a time and place he couldn’t consciously recall. He managed to catch glimpses of it sometimes, mostly in half-finished nightmares where he saw himself shoved and pinned down on the floor by an unrelenting hand on the back of his neck. These nightmares usually also contained a jumble of blood and violence, horrific and painful and repressed by his brain for good reason.

He told Vaughn he had no memory at all of what had happened, made his bro recount everything in detail. Just hearing the way he described it made it all seem like a dream, one that he couldn’t wait to wake up from. Of course, he knew it wasn’t; but Vaughn had spent too long worrying and doting on him for Rhys to knowingly dump more stress on him. He basically kicked Vaughn out of the apartment, told him to take a breather and go get laid or something, he deserved it for all his help. Truthfully, Rhys wasn’t too fond of the constant heart-to-hearts he and the beta were having, and he needed space from Vaughn. From everyone.

From Jack.

He remembered. That was the secret he vowed to keep from everyone: he remembered what Jack had done to him. He saw the feral look on the alpha’s face during the fight that he’d “forgotten” every time he closed his eyes, felt the pull of Robert’s anger and fear through his entire being through the bond. And while Rhys could deny it to everyone else, he couldn’t lie to himself no matter how hard he tried; at that moment, he’d been _terrified_ of Jack.

Some long-dormant gene inside of him had flared up, whether at the bond or his unsuppressed heat or both, and it convinced him that Jack was a threat. Logically, it was dumb; he knew Jack, knew that his boyfriend would never do anything to intentionally hurt him. He also knew that if he was ever in danger he could take care of it himself, thank you very much. But that damned omega biology whispered things to him that were quite to the contrary. It told him he was weak, that he should run and be protected and hide because his alpha would take care of whatever threat was present.

Rhys hated that he was starting to believe the lies.

Somehow worse than his body’s betrayal, at least in his mind, was his betrayal of Hyperion. He hadn’t realized it at first, having come out of his heat with the grim acceptance that Robert had messed with his suppressors in order to make Rhys compliant and more than willing to sleep with him. Upon returning to work the following week, however, he realized that the sex would’ve been an extra reward, not the underlying motive.

Rhys had signed away the company.

Okay, that was a lie; Hyperion was still alive and kicking, and doing a hell of a lot better than any other weapons manufacturer. But to Rhys, as far as he was concerned, he’d betrayed the faith Hyperion had entrusted to him. His inbox was flooded with angry commentaries from his superiors about the shoddy deals he’d made with Atlas and the corporate secrets he’d spilled. And although he couldn’t consciously remember his actions-- only realizing eventually that Robert must’ve ordered him to do these things and his stupid, _stupid_ body must’ve obeyed-- it still burdened him with inescapable guilt.

He didn’t know if he could live with himself after what he’d done, to Hyperion and his friends and Jack and basically everything that mattered to him in this life, and he wanted to stay in his room and let the shame crush him.

Instead, he decided to dedicate himself completely to crushing Atlas.

* * *

Simply crushing Atlas wasn’t enough, Rhys soon realized. His guilt, which had started to morph into an ugly, ever-present rage, wasn’t abated by the way he practically obliterated any standing Atlas had in the market; if they wanted to fight dirty, so be it.

So yes, annihilating Atlas via corporate warfare and an unashamedly significant amount of blackmail was what motivated Rhys to get out of bed in the morning. But it just. Wasn’t. Enough.

Rhys hated that he couldn’t trust himself. It sounded somewhat petty and self-absorbed, but even after all the hurt he’d caused others, this was what tore him apart the most. He could barely sleep at night, trapped in an insomniac frustration because what if he woke up and wasn’t himself? He knew it wasn’t possible, considering he now personally vetted all suppressors and wouldn’t even be naturally going into heat for another month.

It still didn’t help him sleep.

He took his work home, giving himself a purpose for his restless awakeness. He figured maybe a heartwarming hacking of Atlas’ private emails and subsequent leaking of secret prototypes would put him in a good enough mood to sleep, but he had no such luck. He’d tried meditating after Vaughn suggested it, and when that didn’t help, he even considered talking to Jack (as the alpha had a track record of literally never sleeping).

A part of him ached to talk to Jack, to answer the nearly hundreds of missed calls and ignored texts from his boyfriend. But at the same time, he knew nothing good could come of talking to Jack (at least, not for Rhys). Their post-heat conversation had been uncomfortable and exhausting, and Rhys had too much pride to have Jack thinking him weak and doting on him as he always seemed keen on doing. Rhys didn’t need any alpha, not even Jack, taking care of him as if he couldn’t do so himself. He felt nauseous at the realization that this must be exactly how Jack viewed him: an unprotected, vulnerable omega.

_"You're mine, you hear me?”_

_“Don’t forget your place.”_

_“Stupid fucking omega.”_

Those words haunted him, the ones that seemed to come from a repressed dream and he wished would stay that way. When he thought about it, he could hear Robert’s voice spitting the words at him as Rhys laid there, submitting like he was supposed to. But then, when he thought about it even harder, it was Jack hissing those venomous degradations. It was Jack sinking his teeth into the back of his neck as Rhys struggled, claiming him over and over and over. It was Jack plotting to take advantage of him, and it was Jack who made Rhys crave more than anything to be taken advantage of.

Rhys hated it, all of it. Those feelings in his gut that didn’t belong to him. The way the back of his neck burned because of an invisible tie to a piece of shit who didn’t even deserve to remain breathing. That traitorous desire to surround himself with Robert’s scent and do whatever the alpha asked of him.

The late night ruminations were getting exhausting, both physically and mentally. Rhys felt drained, and even five cups of coffee and the best sales trends Hyperion had seen in years couldn’t fill the emptiness tearing him apart.

 _Well_ , he thought to himself as he opened up his text message chain with Tim. _There was no cure as good as a bit more..._ physical _revenge, was there?_

* * *

“Are you sure this is a good idea?”

Tim was staring at Rhys skeptically from where he stood in his living room, cracking his knuckles nervously.

“Would I be here if it wasn’t?” Rhys said, confidence bolstered by the constant feeling of fear, _Robert’s_ fear, pulsing through the bond.

“I mean, you don’t really have the best track record, so maybe--”

“Tim.” Rhys cut him off, giving the beta a reassuring smile. “I’m an adult, and I can make adult decisions. I just want to have a little chat with him, okay?”

Tim nodded slowly, not sure if he totally believed Rhys but also in no position to argue. Unlike Jack, who’d tried to break into his apartment on multiple occasions to cut off Robert’s dick or engage in some other disgusting form of torture, Rhys seemed pretty level-headed.

“Alright,” he said finally, removing a key from his pocket and slowly unlocking the door to the den. He’d moved all of his work stuff into the kitchen, including the small plants he was growing on his desk, after converting the study into a makeshift prison. “Just holler if you need me.”

Rhys debated making a comment about how he “ain’t no hollaback girl,” but thought better of it; he’d just made an argument about being mature, after all.

Glancing back to make sure that Tim wasn’t creepily watching him, Rhys gingerly opened the door and stepped inside, closing the door behind him. No way was he about to have Robert getting out of there. Although, by the looks of things, escape didn’t seem like a viable option in the slightest.

The alpha was lying on his side on the floor, zip ties binding his hands behind his back. He looked exhausted, his face still covered in bruises and dried blood, but he managed to roll himself into a seated position when he noticed Rhys entering.

“Rhys,” he said, grinning. “I was wondering when you’d stop by.”

The omega leaned against the edge of the desk, glowering down at the alpha in annoyance at Robert’s nonchalant, happy tone.

“Oh, really?” Rhys said coolly, choosing his words carefully. “Why’s that?”

Robert raised his brow as if questioning Rhys’ intelligence. “Because you’re going to get me out of here.”

Rhys snorted. “Like hell I am. I just wanted to have a little chat, that’s all.”

Robert’s eyes narrowed. “Let me out,” he demanded, and Rhys felt something inside him flutter at the alpha’s command, something that screamed at him to obey.

He pushed the traitorous thought aside. There was no way he was letting the alpha boss him around, not again.

“That was cute,” Rhys said. “But you’re gonna have to try harder than that.”

Robert growled, glaring at Rhys. The omega didn’t even flinch, meeting his stare lazily. “Seriously, if you’re trying to be intimidating, you should just cut it out now. Honestly, I’m getting secondhand embarrassment just watching you.”

“If you’re not here to let me go, then what are you doing here, _omega_?” The way he sneered as he said the last word, as if his endotype somehow made him an inferior human being, made anger bubble in Rhys, but he quickly buried the emotion deep down where he knew Robert wouldn’t be able to feel it through the bond.

“I already told you, I’m here to talk. Try to keep up, dumbass.”

Robert bared his teeth, but Rhys just rolled his eyes. “Cut the crap before I cut your tongue out, alright?”

The alpha didn’t respond to the threat.

“Now tell me, who sent you to bond me?”

“Nobody,” Robert replied. “Just wanted an omega-bitch of my own, y’know?”

Now it was Rhys’ turn to snarl. “Wrong.” He aimed a kick at Robert’s side, not even attempting to hide his smirk at the alpha’s grunt of pain. “Try again.”

Robert chuckled, although the sound was hoarse. “Weren’t this ballsy when you were begging me to fuck you, were ya?”

Rhys kicked him again, harder this time. “Do you still not get how this works? Because it’s starting to get on my nerves. You answer my questions, or I beat the shit out of you.”

“You know that’s not smart,” Robert said, grinning like he was about to say the most intelligent thing in the world. “You feel it all too, remember? I seem to recall a certain someone crying in the corner like a little _bitch_.”

Rhys grabbed Robert by the hair and slammed his head back against the wall the alpha was resting against. “Yeah; but hearing you in pain? Totally worth it. Now answer my question, _bitch_.”

Robert scowled at the way Rhys spat his words back at him. “I’m not selling them out so easy.”

Rhys sighed. “Okay, y’know what? I’ll give you a pass on this one. A freebie, if you will. I know you’re with Atlas.” He crouched so that his face was inches from Robert’s, hand still clenched in the alpha’s sweat-drenched hair. “And while you’ve been cooped up here, I’ve been running your company into the _fucking ground.”_

The sharp inhale the statement wrung out of Robert was deeply satisfying, and Rhys laughed as he returned to leaning against the desk. “Ready to play by the rules now?”

Robert scowled, not responding.

“I’m gonna take that as a yes. Now, tell me: who told your piece of shit company about my endotype?”

The tight-lipped smile on Robert’s face was nauseating. “You aren’t fooling anyone with your tough guy act, Rhys. Everyone knows you’re just a worthless omega.”

Rhys groaned. “How are you still not getting this?”

He realized smugly how much he sounded like Jack when he was in a murderous mood, and it further bolstered his self-confidence.

“Fine,” Robert spat. “You wanna know how we found out your precious little secret?”

“That is what I asked, yeah,” Rhys said as he rolled his eyes.

“Your heat,” Robert said, the words freezing Rhys in his tracks. “Your hot little ass went into work right before it started, and it wasn’t exactly hard for the Atlas rep you’d been meeting with to smell it on you. Plus, a little investigation into your medical records showed your suppressor prescription, and, well… it’s not exactly hard to put two and two together.”

“There’s nothing on my medical record,” Rhys blurted before he could stop himself.

“Yes, you were careful to cover your tracks,” Robert mused. “But not careful enough. We also checked through your stupid alpha boyfriend’s ‘scripts.”

Rhys wanted to scream. He wanted to shake whoever the hell was in charge of the pharmacy for letting their firewalls be so easily hacked.

He wanted to claw Robert’s face off.

“What were you gonna do with me?” Rhys growled, voice dangerously low. “Huh? After you drugged me?”

The alpha scoffed. “I told you the other day I didn’t drug you. If anything, I sobered you up. Although,” he said smugly. “I guess you don’t remember any of that, huh?”

“I remember enough,” Rhys snapped. “I remember Jack beating the shit out of you.”

“Do you remember protecting me? Trying to be a brave little omega before hiding and letting the alphas take care of business?”

“Shut up,” Rhys shouted. “Shut _up_!”

“Why?” Robert asked. “Are you upset I can’t protect you anymore?”

“I don’t need anyone’s protection,” Rhys hissed. “Especially not yours.”

“Well, that’s good to hear,” Robert chuckled. “‘Cause once I get out of here, I’m selling your ass on Pandora the first chance I get. After I get a chance to finally fuck you, of course.”

Rhys laughed, the sound both hollow and maniacal. “You really think you’re getting out of here?”

Robert stared coldly at Rhys, as if daring the omega to try anything.

“Actually, maybe you will get out of here,” Rhys said finally, grinning. “In a body bag.”

Rhys flicked open the switchblade he’d been hiding in his flesh hand, on Robert in an instant as the alpha futilely struggled.

“Have fun in hell, asshole,” he hissed before jabbing the knife into Robert’s jugular. A spurt of blood from the arterial spray landed on Rhys’ jacket, but he didn’t even flinch. Instead, he twisted the handle of the blade, all but getting off on the choking, gurgling sounds Robert was making.

By the time Robert stopped writhing and his eyes went dull, Rhys’ hands had been coated in a fine layer of blood. He wiped them off on his trousers, too high on the adrenaline rush that had given him to care about the stain. He was beginning to realize now why Jack had such an affinity for murder.

Closing the switchblade and tucking it into his pocket, he creaked open the door to see Tim hunched over a book on the couch. He blanched at Rhys’ blood-spattered appearance, _Fifty Shades of Grey_ clattering to the floor.

“Um… Rhys?”

The omega smiled. “Thought Vault Hunters were supposed to be used to the sight of blood,” he teased.

Tim was still frozen, mouth hanging open in surprise.

“Listen, I’ve gotta get going now,” Rhys said, clapping the beta on the shoulder. “I’ll, uh, send you a check for the carpet cleaner later.”

With that, he turned on his heel and exited the apartment. God, he couldn’t wait to tell Jack.

* * *

“You _what_?”

Jack’s shocked expression was beyond amusing, especially considering it was usually Rhys being surprised by the alpha’s gory escapades.

“I killed him,” Rhys shrugged, casually setting the blood-stained knife onto the counter.

“Holy shit,” Jack breathed, his stare bouncing between the weapon and Rhys’ face. “Holy shit, pumpkin.”

“You said that already,” Rhys said, grinning. “Now finish your champagne so you can kiss me.”

Kissing, of course, soon morphed into indecent touches and Jack practically carrying Rhys into the bedroom. The omega laughed at Jack’s apparent blood kink, but that soon turned to groans of pleasure as Jack undressed him and ran his hands over his body. Rhys quickly divested Jack of his practically disintegrating yellow sweater he always wore at home, trailing kisses down Jack’s chest as Jack threaded his hands through Rhys’ hair.

“I’ve missed this,” he said, grunting as Rhys sucked a hickey onto his hip. “I’ve missed you.”

Rhys, satisfied with the bruise he’d left, crawled back up to meet Jack’s lips. “I missed you too. I’m sorry I avoided you,” he said breathlessly between kisses. “Let me make it up to you.”

“No way, kitten,” Jack said, pushing Rhys off of him to sit up against the pillows. Rhys frowned, confused as to why the alpha was suddenly rejecting him.

“Tonight’s all about you, princess,” Jack said, turning back to Rhys with a bottle of lube and devilish glint in his eyes.

Jack reminded Rhys over and over how proud he was of him, how fucking hot it was that he’d killed that bastard, as he quickly yet thoroughly prepped him. Rhys moaned as Jack finally slid into him, happy to see that Jack seemed equally as blissed as he was. They’d decided to do it missionary, which, albeit pretty vanilla for them, meant that Rhys could continue to greedily make out with Jack as the alpha thrust into him.

He moaned Jack’s name against the alpha’s lips as he came, hips stuttered around Jack’s hand as the alpha followed soon after.

“Shit, Rhysie,” Jack said, panting as he rolled over onto his back to lay next to Rhys. “That was so good.”

“Yeah,” Rhys agreed, sighing and closing his eyes in exhaustion.

He roused as he felt Jack cleaning him off, seeing that familiar, hideous yellow as Jack tossed the sweater back onto the floor.

“It’s official,” Rhys said, pressing himself up against the alpha’s warm side. “I’m making you throw that thing out.”

Jack made a mock noise of offense. “No way,” he said, pressing a into kiss to Rhys’ hair and looping an arm behind the omega’s back to pull him closer. “After you, that baby’s my most prized possession.”

Rhys snorted. “You don’t own me.”

“Don’t lie,” Jack said, grinning. “You love it.”

Rhys blushed, hoping Jack wouldn’t notice how goddamn endearing he found his words to be. “Yeah, yeah. Now shut up and let me sleep, asshole.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> probably only gonna be like 2 more chapters after this, and since i'm stuck at home all week, i'm hoping to finish it pretty soon. also, the amount of times they say "bitch" in this chapter makes me feel like i'm writing jesse's dialogue in breaking bad lmao


	20. I Like It When You Sleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim had warned them that forcing the bond to break would be dangerous, but Rhys was never one for following the rules.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> jack and rhys actually communicating? who'd've thought it was possible

Jack was not a heavy sleeper. Being raised by an abusive grandmother and risking his life every day Vault Hunting for years made it difficult for his brain not to perceive every noise as a possible threat, especially when he was asleep and vulnerable. Living on Helios, however, made his easily triggered wakefulness nothing more than a nuisance, because a clanking bathroom pipe or insignificant space rock hitting the outside of the impenetrable space station wasn’t anything of Jack’s immediate concern. It left him overtired and cranky, and he didn’t even get the pleasure of a kill that such an obtrusion used to grant him.

So when his well-honed hearing picked up a strange noise in the quiet of his apartment, his brain was immediately jogged into wakefulness. He sighed, rolling over to check his phone like he knew he wasn’t supposed to. He still had quite a few more hours to sleep, and he tightly closed his eyes as he willed himself to submit back to unconsciousness.

But then that stupid, annoying sound came again, and Jack knew he wouldn’t be getting any more shut-eye until he determined the source of it. He reached underneath his pillow for the small pistol he kept stashed in case of emergencies, such as the current one which was likely nothing more than the person in the apartment below his that for some reason enjoyed having loud, kinky sex during the witching hours. He really needed to airlock that guy soon.

The alpha quietly slid out of bed, careful not to disturb the covers lest he wake Rhys. The omega was a heavy sleeper, yet he had no shortage of complaints about Jack’s “obnoxious paranoia” interrupting his rest. Jack rolled his eyes; the kid really was a piece of work.

Clutching his gun, which was a classy piece of corrosive Hyperion tech perfect for melting someone’s face off, he exited the bedroom. He prowled through the entire apartment, even taking a pit stop for a few pretzels while checking over the kitchen. His search yielded nothing (not that he’d expected differently), and he begrudgingly returned to bed. He’d just have to play phone games until he was tired enough to fall asleep again.

Halfway under the blankets, Jack heard the noise again, louder this time. It was coming from the bathroom, which he’d stupidly forgotten to check. Was he losing his edge? He wasn’t _that_ old, for crying out loud.

He entered the bathroom gun-first, wary of any threat that might appear. Maybe there was some low-level worker bee fanboy trying to steal his hair products-- he honestly wouldn’t put it past those weirdos. Being famous was great, but it was also goddamn exhausting.

His pistol whipped around at the sound of something clattering to the ground, his heart rate picking up in some twisted excitement at actually being able to kill someone. Then he lowered his weapon as he realized the source of the noise was Rhys, since Jack hadn’t even checked to see if he was still in bed because he was a dumbass like that.

“F-fuck,” Rhys stammered, staring at Jack from where he sat on the closed lid of the toilet with his gangly legs awkwardly pulled up to his chest. “Did I wake you? Sorry, I d-didn’t mean to.”

The omega looked like shit, the Handsome Jack-shaped nightlight that the alpha had vainly bought illuminating the tears streaming down Rhys’ face. His hands were shaking, and Jack noticed the half-empty box of tissues that had fallen onto the floor tile in front of him.

“Rhysie,” Jack said, slipping his gun into the waistband of his boxers before slowly approaching his boyfriend. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Rhys said quickly, his response accompanied by a hiccup.

“You’re crying, kitten,” Jack said softly, rubbing at the omega’s tears with his thumb.

The small space was heavy with the omega’s scent, which smelled oddly sour, like an orange left to shrivel in the sun. Jack may not be a biology expert, but he knew that something was off.

“It’s fine,” Rhys said, not looking at Jack. “Just go back to bed.”

Jack shook his head. “Not without you.”

Rhys’ shoulders hitched as he let out a stifled sob, curling even tighter in on himself as his flesh hand pressed against the back of his neck.

“Talk to me,” Jack said, placing a hand on Rhys’ shoulder. “Please, please talk to me, cupcake.”

Rhys sniffled, leaning his head against Jack’s arm and breathing in his calming scent.

“It’s the bond,” he said finally, voice shaking. “It- I think it’s breaking.”

Tim’s warnings flashed through Jack’s head, the cautions to let the bond break on its own rather than ending it abruptly and wreaking havoc on Rhys’ body.

The omega sighed, clutching even stronger at his bonding site. “It feels like it’s burning.”

His voice, barely louder than a whisper, sent a nervous chill through Jack’s body. He’d been so giddy about the fact that Robert was finally, finally dead that he’d forgotten the repercussions that would follow.

“I’m sorry, pumpkin,” Jack said, his remorse genuine. In that moment, he was willing to do anything and everything to ease Rhys’ pain.

“It’s not your fault,” Rhys said, shaking his head. “I- I did this.”

Jack began to rub slow circles on Rhys’ shoulder blade with his thumb from where his hand was still resting on the omega’s shoulder. The fabric of the t-shirt under his palm was soft, and he realized it was actually one of his own.

“Damn, Rhysie. Stealing my clothes while I’m asleep? That’s low, pumpkin.” He chuckled, an honest attempt to distract Rhys from whatever sort of shittiness he was feeling.

Rhys shrugged. “It smelled like you.”

The alpha full-on laughed at that, a weird sort of territorial pride swelling in his chest. He then tried to smother it down, because now _really_ wasn’t the time for it.

The omega had cracked a small smile at Jack’s teasing, but it had already morphed back into a frown.

“It hurts,” he said, the words tumbling out despite how desperately he tried to swallow them. “It’s like I can still feel him. Feel him dying.”

Rhys’ shoulders hitched as he cried, and Jack wrapped both arms around him.

“It’s okay,” Jack said, resting his chin on top of Rhys’ head. “It’s over, you’re okay.”

Rhys tried to nod, but the motion felt disgustingly like a lie. His tongue was too big for his mouth, preventing him from conveying to Jack that no, he was just about the farthest thing from okay.

“I _feel_ him,” Rhys said again once he regained control of his mouth. He hoped the repetition conveyed his point, because he didn’t think he had the strength to go into detail.

“I know,” Jack said softly. “But it’ll be over soon, I promise.”

Rhys couldn’t stop the sob that ripped through him. “Th-that’s what we thought last time. B-before he- before he b-bonded me again.”

Jack bit his lip, unsure of how to respond. He’d never admit it, but he had similar fears, because seriously, this whole thing had been a shitshow for months.

“He’s gone,” Jack said, wrapping an arm around Rhys’ shoulders and pulling the omega against his chest. “He can’t hurt you anymore.”

Rhys nodded; he wanted to believe Jack, he really did. But the pain and emptiness were overpowering, reminiscent of the anguish he’d felt coinciding with the assault during his heat. This time, though, he was stone cold sober, and the fact that he was still prey to his instincts challenged every reassurance he’d fed himself. He’d thought he was better than his biology, but it seemed that even now he couldn’t best his genetics. He was cowering in a bathroom, trying to make himself as small as possible, for no rational reason whatsoever.

Yes, maybe the bond feedback was a fairly logical reason; yet to Rhys, it just felt like a lame attempt at an excuse. He was weak, and he always would be. Robert had been right about him-- and that wasn’t even the worst part. He knew Jack realized it too, realized how useless Rhys was as anything other than being an emotional mess and a good lay.

He hadn’t realized that he’d started to sob even harder, that he’d slid into that familiar dark corner of his mind, until he felt Jack’s arms looping around him and returning him to the present. He found himself being lifted from his perch, Jack’s arms strong as he carried him bridal style.

“W-what are you d-doing?” Rhys said, unable to speak without his voice wavering.

“Taking care of you,” Jack replied succinctly.

“I t-told you I’m fine,” Rhys said, although he made minimal effort to escape from where he was pressed against Jack’s warm body.

“I know,” Jack said as he readjusted his grip.

“Then why--”

“Because I love you,” Jack said, the words rushed yet so sincere it made Rhys’ heart freeze from its frantic beating. “Shit, Rhysie, I love you so much.”

More tears started to fall down Rhys’ face, and he sniffled it what was surely a very unattractive way.

“Please, please let me help,” Jack said, and Rhys could feel the vibrations of the words through the alpha’s chest. “Don’t shut me out again, pumpkin.”

He didn’t know why those words tore him apart even more, but Rhys grabbed onto Jack with his single arm, clinging to him and feeling his tears soak the fabric of Jack’s undershirt.

“I’m sorry,” he said, the sound muffled. “I’m so s-sorry.”

Jack didn’t respond immediately, instead gently laying Rhys down on the couch. The omega hadn’t even realized they’d entered the living room, and it took every ounce of self-restraint he had not to cry out at the lack of Jack’s touch. He slowly brought his knees up to his chest, trying to comfort himself as he heard Jack’s footsteps receding.

He lost himself in the ache spreading through his entire being, a physical and emotional migraine that threatened to completely tear him apart. Was this what dying felt like? A bone-chilling emptiness, an all-encompassing shiver? His body was sinking into the couch, disappearing and decomposing until he was sure there was nothing left of him.

“Here.” Rhys looked up to see Jack standing before him, seemingly unaware that he was talking to a corpse. “It’s, uh, your favorite.”

He held out a pint of ice cream, which Rhys gingerly took. He opened the container on autopilot, because even dead Rhys knew what to do when a tub of cookie dough ice cream was in his hands. There was a bit missing on the top, and the omega heard Jack chuckle from beside him.

“Sorry, I, erm, kinda ate some the other day. Made me think of you, and all that emotional crap.”

Rhys smiled as he took the spoon that Jack offered to him, the familiarity of the alpha’s aversion to anything remotely resembling feelings like a warm blanket. He realized a moment later that Jack had slipped an actual warm blanket over his shoulders, and some of the tension in his body relaxed.

It was difficult eating ice cream with only one hand, but this wasn’t Rhys’ first rodeo. He held the container steady between his thighs as he spooned the physical embodiment of heaven into his mouth. His crying started to slow, and by the time he scraped the bottom of the pint, he felt more whole than he had in a long, long time.

When he went to put the empty container onto the coffee table (his legs were freezing), he noticed Jack was staring at him.

“What?” he asked, beginning to feel self-conscious. “Is there something on my face?”

Jack smiled and shook his head, moving from the armchair to sit next to Rhys on the couch. He coaxed Rhys into lying down with his head in the alpha’s lap, the omega closing his eyes at the fingers playing with his hair.

“Move in with me.”

“Hmm?” Rhys asked, distracted by his exhaustion and the safe scent surrounding him.

“Move in with me, pumpkin.”

“I think I’m dreaming,” Rhys said, humming. “Because it sounded like you asked me to ‘bring all my ridiculous fanboy crap into your bangin apartment,’ or whatever it was you said the other day.”

Jack blushed at his words, thankful that Rhys couldn’t see his face. “Yeah, well, I changed my mind.”

Rhys sighed, nuzzling Jack’s leg as the alpha gently massaged his scalp. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Jack repeated.

“Yes, dumbass; of course I’ll move in with you.”

“Oh,” Jack said, smiling.

“Someone’s gotta keep an eye on you,” Rhys mumbled, his words followed by a yawn.

Jack snorted. “Get some rest, kitten.”

“Mhmm,” Rhys said, shifting under the blanket for a moment before finally dozing off.

Jack didn’t stop his light touches of Rhys’ hair, the soft feeling of it grounding him as his heart tried to flutter out into space. Rhys’ scent was slowly returning to its usual sweetness, and Jack felt utterly at ease. He could still see the outline of the bite marks on the back of Rhys’ neck, but they were already beginning to dull in color. He was safe now, and Jack swore he would never let anyone put their hands on his boyfriend ever again.

Rhys sighed in his sleep, and Jack let his own head rest against the back of the couch and his eyes slip closed. He listened to the soft sound of Rhys breathing until he too fell asleep.

Yeah, he could get used to this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i suppose i could just end the story here, but i'm adding one more chapter to wrap up loose ends and add in a certain self indulgent scene that i've been waiting to write


	21. I Open At The Close

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fluffy ending that these nerds deserve. 
> 
> (JK Rowling is probably rolling in her metaphorical grave at this title lmao.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i don't know how, but we actually did it guys! we made it to the end! thanks for all your support, and i hope you enjoy one final chapter with these losers (featuring that one fluffy nsfw scene i'm sure you've all been waiting for but you can skip past to the end of the fic if you're not a fan of smut)

They didn’t talk much about the bond after that.

Jack knew on some level that he should probably broach the topic again, that Rhys was just avoiding the problem rather than progressing to wholly not being affected by it, but he couldn’t bring himself to do so. He didn’t need to have a heart-to-heart with Rhys for the omega to know that he cared, as the way he soothed Rhys back to sleep every time the omega had a nightmare or flashback spoke volumes. He didn’t need Rhys to elaborate on the source of his fear, as the hand reflexively curled around his bonding site each time he had a panic attack said more than enough.

Those episodes were growing less frequent, however, especially since Rhys spent each night snuggled in the warm, safe embrace of his boyfriend. He’d been a bit worried about how Vaughn would take the news of him moving in with Jack, but his bro had instead given him a relieved hug.

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about me moving in with Leia for months,” the beta had said sheepishly. “I just didn’t want Jack to, y’know, uh, kill me.”

Rhys gave Vaughn his blessing and reassured him that he’d keep Jack in line, although Vaughn’s “yeah right” eye roll was probably more than apropos. So while Rhys’ lanky stature made schlepping all his crap to Jack’s apartment a thoroughly exhausting ordeal, not having to lug stuff back and forth every weekend was far worth the effort. Between the drawer he’d made Jack clear out specifically for his socks and the permission to even hang up one of his geeky posters in the bedroom, Rhys felt even more at home than he had back when he’d lived with Vaughn. More at home than he had back when he’d lived with, well, anyone.

The same things that used to terrify him about sharing a living space had morphed into the very aspects he loved, the concept of which was oddly comforting. Being upfront about his biology, especially his heats, was an impossibility turned into an immense relief; it was exhausting having to speak with professionals (and even Jack) in code all the time. And in that same vain-- having his boyfriend completely and easily at his disposal whenever his annoyingly unpredictable omega hormones desired? Utterly fantastic.

It took Rhys a while to realize it, but the abundance of Jack’s scent lingering throughout the entire apartment was also a strange comfort. In the past, he’d gotten antsy whenever his own citrusy pheromones weren’t at the forefront of his senses. But now, with Jack… with Jack, there was an unusual (yet not at all unpleasant) sense of security. He felt protected on some baser level, and for once he felt safe enough to actually indulge in that peacefulness. For once, he didn’t feel like he needed to be on guard all the time.

The first few heats he shared with Jack while they were living together triggered Rhys’ self-preserving instincts, and Jack was patient as he carefully reassured Rhys that it was okay, he could relax. Jack’s soft words and the dulling effect of the hormonal suppressors eventually helped the message sink in, and the omega slowly readjusted to the feeling of the fever without completely panicking. Jack knew it was hard; it didn’t take a genius to figure out that Rhys’ thoughts returned to his heat with Robert when the omega went quiet and his eyes glazed over. When he pretended to sleep so that Jack wouldn’t catch him crying.

But Jack never pushed, never intruded or made suggestions unless Rhys asked. He’d already almost lost him before, and he’d be damned if he let that happen again. And Rhys made progress. He really, really did. Jack was overjoyed at the way Rhys returned to his confident, albeit dorky, self. He’d frickin’ demolished Atlas, and that alone was definitely an ego boost for the omega. Coupled with Jack’s unbeatable blowjob skills on display each time reports showed Atlas sinking even lower into the ground, Rhys better have been feeling nothing short of ten million bucks.

He’d surprised Rhys one night with a black, official-looking envelope, a smug look on his unmasked face. The omega was wearing one of Jack’s old hoodies that he’d commandeered as his own at some point during the year they’d been living together, the yellow sleeve hanging loosely around his thin wrist as he took the envelope from Jack.

“What is this?” he asked, fumbling with the seal with his single arm before handing the envelope back to Jack with a silent plea for help in his eyes.

“A gift,” Jack said, making quick work of the envelope in a jagged, overly eager way that made Rhys cringe.

The omega gingerly took the enclosed parchment-printed letter from Jack, seriously wishing he hadn’t detached his cybernetic arm yet if only to avoid the stationary carnage. He chewed on his lip as he slowly read over the letter’s contents, scanning it with his ECHOeye to confirm its legitimacy before turning to Jack in wonder. “You’re shitting me.”

Jack grinned. “Nope.”

Rhys reread the words, skimming across the legal jargon in favor of the big picture analysis his subsystems provided him.

Rhys was now the owner of Atlas.

“How did you even--”

“Buy out their entire corporation?” Jack asked, smirking as he began the small speech he’d no doubt been holding in the entire night. “It all started back when you did that intel leak with their guns. Geez, kitten, remember that? Shit was priceless. I had some undercover lackeys buy up some shares, and when you kept kicking Atlas’ ass, we bought up even more. Seriously babe, it was some real scheming shit. Not even violent, you’d be proud of me. Okay, maybe it was somewhat violent, because there was a mole at one point and--”

Jack’s rambling was cut short by the pressure of Rhys’ lips against his. “You’ll have to tell me more later,” Rhys said in a way that meant he didn’t need to hear the rest of that story at any point in time. “But right now you’ve got a job.”

“Hmm,” Jack said, pressing against Rhys and all but forgetting about the conversation they’d been having moments ago (his dick absorbed a lot of his brain power). “What job is that, princess?”

“Fucking the new CEO of Atlas.”

Jack groaned, looping his arms around Rhys and carrying him to the bedroom over his shoulder as the omega giggled.

“Put me down, asshole,” Rhys laughed, both he and Jack unfazed in the derailment of their dirty talk. Sometimes, it was better like this; better when they smiled and laughed, shared sappily long kisses and acted way too endearingly for two people in the midst of fucking. It was a featherlight sort of pleasure, a rare moment of serendipitous playfulness that left them both feeling like lovesick teenagers.

“Jack?” Rhys said breathlessly, his eyes searching for Jack’s as the alpha loomed over him in the sheets soon after. The alpha had been grinning handsomely ever since he’d deposited Rhys on the bed, and the feeling of his lips, fingers and, eventually, dick left Rhys unable to even belittle him for being way too eager and self-absorbed.

“Yeah, kitten?” Jack asked as he gave a particularly hard thrust that had Rhys’ back arching.

“I want,” Rhys paused as a moan was worked out of him. “I want you to-- _oh fuck just like that.”_

Jack smirked, brushing a sweat-dampened curl of hair off the corner of Rhys’ forehead. “Don’t worry, baby. I know just how you like it.”

Rhys let out what might have been a laugh had it not been cut off by a sharp inhale at the feeling of Jack’s fingers wrapping around his cock.

“W-wait,” Rhys stammered, trying to push Jack’s hand away. The alpha paused, withdrawing his hand and looking at Rhys.

Rhys groaned at the stilling of Jack’s hips. “I didn’t say stop, asshole. I just don’t wanna-- not yet.”

He didn’t have to finish his thought for Jack to catch his drift, as the alpha had all but started laughing at his partner’s lack of stamina.

“Y’know, Rhysie, we did order that cock ring last month…just thinking out loud!” he amended as Rhys socked him in the arm.

“Not what I meant,” Rhys said, rolling his eyes. “I wanted to ask you something.”

Rhys tried to push himself up to sit to convey his seriousness, and Jack lifted him the rest of the way so that he was sitting in Jack’s lap.

“I wanted,” Rhys started again before stopping to pepper kisses along Jack’s jaw line. “Wanted to ask you…”

“Mmm, yeah, cupcake, you mentioned that,” Jack said cheekily, his hips starting to thrust lightly upwards.

Rhys groaned, plastering himself impossibly closer to Jack and shuddering at the friction it created on his cock. “Wanted to ask you… to bond with me.”

Jack froze, feeling a chill spread through him despite the warmth of Rhys on top of and literally around him. The omega was still kissing the side of his neck like he hadn’t just dropped a bombshell on Jack, and the alpha was struggling to comprehend. “You want to- to bond?”

“That’s what I said, yeah,” Rhys said, leaving Jack to shudder at the meaning of Rhys’ words and the feeling of his warm breath ghosting across his skin.

Jack didn’t respond at first, prompting Rhys to grind his hips on top of Jack, because he was sure as hell about to get off regardless of whether the alpha accepted his offer. He slowed his motions, however, when he felt Jack’s hand clench on his hip, stilling him.

“Are you- are you sure, pumpkin?”

Rhys took Jack’s face in his one hand, directing the alpha’s gaze to meet his. “I want this, Jack. I- I love you.”

Jack pursed his lips, contemplating, and Rhys began fidgeting in his lap. Maybe he shouldn’t have asked. Maybe Jack didn’t think their relationship was as serious as Rhys considered it to be. Maybe he should just start up a cold shower now since it was clear whatever was happening before was taking a turn for major blue balls.

“Yes.”

Rhys quirked his brow, a bit disoriented from being snapped out of his thoughts of freezing his dick off. “Huh?”

“Yes, idiot,” Jack said, pulling him forward and pressing their lips together. “The answer is yes.”

Rhys felt a thrill run through him, burying his face in the crook of Jack’s neck to stifle his embarrassingly large, dopey smile.

“Gonna need you on your hands and knees, kitten.”

Rhys was pretty sure he’d never been so turned on. He was practically shaking with excitement, the butterflies in his stomach masking the slight pain at pulling off of Jack. The alpha lightly held Rhys’ hips as the omega situated himself on all fours (or three, considering his cybernetic arm was off). He could feel the head of Jack’s cock teasing at him but not pushing in, and he clenched involuntarily.

“Relax, Rhysie,” Jack said as he slowly entered him again. “I’ve got you.”

Rhys hummed in acknowledgement, reveling in the feeling of Jack. Of his scent, his wandering touches, his mouth sucking hickies on his back. Oh yeah, and his dick hitting all the right places inside him.

It was a gentle sort of fucking, passionate but not frenzied. Through the haze of the pleasure Rhys could feel Jack’s mouth inching up his back, his kisses leaving goosebumps trailing in their wake. Jack was nearing his bonding site, he could tell. His entire body thrummed with energy, tensing in excitement at what was about to come-- which, funnily enough, also happened to be Rhys.

“J-Jack!” he shouted, back arching as Jack’s hand was on his dick, stroking him in time with his thrusts. The warmth was building in his gut, his orgasm nearing.

“I love you, Rhysie,” Jack whispered, and this time his lips were pressed against the back of his neck, a soft yet overpowering presence.

This close, Jack was practically intoxicated by the pheromones, drunk on the citrusy smell and the fact that he was about to do it. He was about to bond with Rhys. He could feel Rhys’ pulse racing beneath his lips, and the warm skin beneath his mouth, albeit still baring the scars of past misery, was his to mark. _His._ Rhys would be his.

Jack took a shaky breath, and then he bit down.

For a moment, it was as if nothing existed but the two of them. The contact between them felt more than just physical, like something surging through the very fiber of his being. Jack was weightless, floating in a strange place of comfort and warmth and safety that he’d never felt before.

He was dragged back down to Earth (technically Helios, if you wanted to get nit-picky) by the feeling of Rhys’ body clenching around him, and a few pumps of his hips left him shuddering as his orgasm washed over him.

He moaned Rhys’ name, the sound loud and low, the places where their skin touched sparking with electric pleasure. It was what he imagined snorting a line of coke felt like (he wasn’t self-loathing enough to actually entertain risking his reputation at the hands of a moronic drug). No, he decided as pleasure continued to course through him: this was what snorting fifty lines of coke felt like.

He vaguely registered that he was no longer physically coming, yet his mind still lingered in that orgasmic cloudspace. He opted to stay there, because it really was quite enjoyable, although his body had some other plans of its own. He slowly lowered himself to his side, pulling Rhys down with him and spooning him with an arm draped over the omega’s chest. And if Jack had seemed out of it… well, that wasn’t shit compared to Rhys.

Jack could feel Rhys’ heart beating out of control underneath his hand, the omega’s entire body lightly trembling. He’d definitely already finished, considering Jack’s hand and the sheets were covered in stickiness. Yet he continued to let out quiet, breathy moans, shifting imperceptibly closer until Jack registered the contact of the back of Rhys’ head on his nose. The alpha inhaled deeply. Oh. _Oh._

Rhys smelled good. He smelled really, really fucking good. It was overwhelming, a sort of delicious incense that Jack wanted imprinted on every inch of his body. On his nose, his lips, his tongue. Tentatively, Jack slid to mouth at the lightly bleeding wound on the back of Rhys’ neck. The omega squirmed at the contact, pushing back against Jack and sighing at the pressure. Taking that as a go-ahead, Jack softly began to lick at the bite, tasting the gustatory embodiment of safety and happiness warm on his tongue. Had everything always felt so bright and warm? So secure?

Rhys practically purred as Jack continued to lick at his bonding site, the omega’s small shudders of pleasure mirrored by Jack. Huh. So that was what bonding felt like.

“You feelin’ okay, princess?” Jack was surprised at the rough exhaustion in his voice, although he supposed awesome sex followed by-- holy shit it actually happened hadn’t it-- bonding would be pretty tiring.

Rhys’ only response was to hum and continue to lay there, smiling at the feeling of Jack surrounding him. His body at his back, his lips at his bonding site, his scent surrounding him-- what more could he ever ask for? He was more than content to rest in that blissfulness for the hours it took for him to return to coherency, definitely groggy but feeling more relaxed than he had in a long, long time.

“Jack?” he asked, feeling the warmth of Jack’s on his neck.

“Yeah?” Jack said before returning to kissing Rhys’ bonding spot.

“Thank you.”

Jack snorted. “You’re welcome. Glad to know I can get you high for free.”

Rhys chuckled as he grabbed at Jack’s arm, tugging their bodies closer together. “Not what I meant. Although I am feeling pretty good…”

“You’ve been completely stoned for three hours, cupcake,” Jack said, cheeks flushing as he felt his chest fill with a love-tinted embarrassment that definitely didn’t belong to him. That feeling only heightened as he nuzzled the back of Rhys’ neck, and he smiled after a moment. “Also, are you always such a mushy nerd?”

Rhys made a noise of confusion, and Jack supposed he should probably let his boyfriend rest; bonding was a huge deal for omegas, even more so than for their alpha counterparts. But Jack was, well, Jack, and giving up an opportunity to tease his boyfriend was against whatever twisted moral compass acted as his own self-created religion.

“I can feel you getting all nervous through the bond. It’s adorable.” Another flood of alien yet not unwelcome butterflies whipped through Jack’s body, and he chuckled. “See, just like that!”

Rhys groaned, although he didn’t bother disputing the obvious. “Shut up.”

“Does this mean I can read your mind? Ooh, ooh, will our dicks become, like, connected? If I suck you off, will it be like giving myself a blowjob? Or what if--”

Rhys’ hand uncoordinatedly slapping at Jack’s face in a misguided attempt to cover the alpha’s mouth managed to pause his unfiltered rambling, and Jack responded by teasingly licking Rhys’ fingers. He was met with an elbow to the shoulder, which he probably should have seen coming.

“Stop talking,” Rhys said, his attempt to be commanding not exactly fear-inducing considering how exhausted-sounding it was. “Sleep.”

“You go to bed, Rhysie,” Jack replied, readjusting his hold on Rhys and kissing at his bonding site in a way that had the omega melting in pleasure and serenity. “I’ve got you, don’t worry.”

Jack turned off the bedside lamp with his free hand before pulling the blankets overtop himself and Rhys, listening to the even sounds of Rhys’ slowed, steadied breathing. He continued to whisper reassurances to Rhys as he felt himself nearing sleep as well, and smiled when he felt a small inward twinge near his heart. Rhys’ own promises and assurances floated through Jack, calming him and reminding him over and over that Rhys was his, and that he was Rhys’.

Bonded. He and Rhys were bonded. He mentally tested out the words and tried to quell the surge of pride and excitement inside him lest he wake Rhys and gave the omega a reason to turn the teasing on him. Because, y’know, they were bonded.

Jack grinned-- he definitely liked the sound of that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk what endings are, but i'm kinda sad this fic is over. it's been a wild ride to write, and i'm gonna miss it. i'll love you forever if you maybe possibly check out the other fics i'm writing (that i'll now have more time to work on) because i thrive off attention.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments/kudos are appreciated! Find me on [tumblr](http://dragonbagel.tumblr.com)


End file.
